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VINDICATION -Hj- 



EDMUND RANDOLPH, 



WRITTEN BY HIMSELF, AND PUBLISHED IN 1795. 



NEW EDITION, 



WITH A PREFACE, 



By p. V:' DANIEL, Jr 



RICHMOND: ^y 
CHARLES H. WYNNE, PRINTER. 
1855. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



In re-producing the "Vindication" of Edmund Kandolph, originally pub- 
lished by him now sixty years since, a brief exposition of the circumstances and 
reasons, which seem to call for its re-publication^ will not be inappropriate ; nor, 
it is hoped, uninteresting. 

To purify the current of our country's history from the turbid obscurity, 
which the violence of party spirit imparted to its early course ; to free it from 
the stain of having even its earliest counsels guided, not by the patriots whom 
we revere, but by corrupt and selfish men ; and, at the same time, to repel the 
only aspersion, with which even calumny ever dared to assail the character of 
one, whose virtues and talents, devoted to his country's service, made him a 
bright exemplar for the generous youth of succeeding generations ; these, surely, 
are objects, from which no patriot can turn with indifference, nor withhold his 
aid, however feeble. 

The true history of the transactions to which these pages relate, presents a 
case, to which, perhaps, the records of no civilized country — certainly not those 
of our own — afford a parallel. Let its few and simple facts be stated : no com- 
ment could place its enormity in a stronger light. Edmund Randolph, born of 
eminent and wealthy parents, of commanding talents and attainments, disin- 
herited by his father for his patriotic devotion to his country in her Revolu- 
tionary struggle for independence, beloved and respected by all who knew him, 
honored by his native State, (and that State was Vieginia — the Virginia of 
1776,) for his virtues and services, by calling him to the chief magistracy, even 
before Patrick Henry, who succeeded him — by delegating him to the Congress 
who framed the Federal Constitution, and by adopting that Constitution partly 
at least through his advocacy, opposed to the impassioned eloquence of Henry 
himself; at the organization of the Federal Government urgently invited by 
Washington to become a member of his first Cabinet ; continuing, first as Attor- 
ney General, and then as Secretary of State, for more than six years, on terms 
of the closest intimacy and confidence, and in daily and almost hourly communi- 
cation, with Washington, for whom his respect scarcely exceeded his affection; — 
THIS MAN, in the laborious discharge of his official duties to his countrj', in the 
unsuspecting assurance of the confidence of the President, who masked his own 
suspicions with more than accustomed cordiality, that he might the better watch 
the conduct of his friend; — this man is suddenly stricken down, condemned. 



IV 

and disgi-acecl, so far as such a man can be disgraced — and for what cause, and 
on what evidence of guilt or unworthiness ? Who was his accuser ? who the 
witnesses? and what the facts corroborating their evidence, adduced against 
him ? Let them be fairly and fully stated. A Minister from the French Re- 
public, chagrined and out of humor at the failure of his mission, and yet evi- 
dently anxious to create in the minds of his government an exaggerated estimate 
of his insight into the seci'et springs of American politics, and of his influence 
over American statesmen, in transmitting to that government secret dispatches, 
concealed even from his colleagues in his embassy, uses expressions, which, 
though very ambiguous, may — it is for argument's sake conceded — bear an 
interpretation, which would seem to implicate Mr. Randolph in having impro- 
perly communicated to him some of the private views of the American Govern- 
ment, and even in having made some vague and obscm-e advances for loans of 
money. 

Here we have the accuser, and this is the accusation, in its utmost extent. 
How is it at once met by the accused ? "With either the confusion, or the ve- 
hement resentment, which conscious guilt always assumes ? No ! but with a 
lofty, calm, dignified denial, which confounds even his enemies, and with an 
equanimity arising from conscious integrity, which even the indignity of their 
plots to take him by surprise could not disturb, adding to his denial the solemn 
sanction of an appeal to his God for its truth, by him, whose lightest word was 
never before questioned. 

But who are the witnesses ? and what their testimony against him ? Why, 
this same French Minister is still used at once as the accuser and the sole wit- 
ness against him, and this same secret, ambiguous dispatch, is at once the 
indictment and only testimony to sustain it. Is this witness called by the prose- 
cuting party, to explain this very equivocal and ambiguous document ? No ; he 
is not even asked by them to furnish the two preceding dispatches, referred to 
in this, as the key, and essential to its true meaning. Compelled, then, to prove a 
negative by the sole witness for the prosecution — if witness he may be called — in 
defending himself from charges unsustained by any other testimony, the accused 
then calls on this Minister to explain what he meant by these equivocal expres- 
sions. What is his reply ? Substantially this: " My language has been grossly 
misunderstood and misinterpreted. Never did I mean to impute — never did I 
dream of imputing to Mr. Randolph any of the motives, sentiments or conduct, 
which your mistaken inferences from my letter attribute to him. On the con- 
trary, his character and conduct in his oiiicial and private intercourse with 
me, have ever been marked with the purest integrity, scrupulous discretion, and 
zealous fidelity to his country and its government. These have always been my 
sentiments ; as will be seen from my ofiBcial correspondence Avitli my govern- 
ment, which my successor in ofiice (Mr. Adet) will verify." 

How is this evidence of this witness for the prosecution now received by the 
prosecuting party ? With a candid and honorable avowal of their error and 
injustice ? No ! but with a wholly groundless and shameless attempt to discredit 
their own witness, on whose misinterpreted letter alone their accusation rests ; 
recklessly asserting, that what he now says, in correcting that misinterpretation, 
is only a tissue of unblushing falsehoods, concerted with the accused himself! ! 
And yet, observe the altered circumstances, so much less favorable to the ac- 
cused, under which he now speaks. On the moment of leaving the American 
coast in a French ship, in hourly danger of capture by a British frigate, he is 



called on by a dismissed and disgraced public officer, shorn of all influence with 
his government, poor in wealth and poorer still in reputation — unless his inno- 
cence be established — who demands of him, as an act of justice, that he should, 
at no small inconvenience, explain his meaning in the dispatch which had caused 
his disgrace. Pride of consistency^ reluctance to diminish the reputation he 
may have acquired by his former dispatch, for influence with the American Gov- 
ernment, or at least indifference to what concerned one now so unimportant, 
might have inclined him to avoid what, had any of these charges been true, 
honor, trutli, justice, and a regard for his own character, would have required 
him to refuse — the explanation and denial of all those charges, which his sense 
of justice compelled him freely to give. And yet this statement, thus given, is 
spurned and discredited, as wholly false, and the former equivocal expressions 
of the same u-itncss, which it so fully and satisfactorily expl^ns, unsustained by 
the testimony of one other witness, or by one single corroborating fact of cir- 
cumstantial evidence, is insisted on as complete proof of atrocious guilt, iu 
a man on whose character no stain had ever been found, elevated, as he was, to 
the second office in the nation, and who, bidding defiance to scrutiny, appealed 
to his God for the purity of his heart and uprightness of his conduct. Nor did 
he rest, as he might well have done, upon this denial, his defence to such absurd 
and proofless charges, until something like evidence had been adduced to sustain 
them. Instantly surrendering into the hands of his accusers the custody of his 
office and all the papers it contained, without again entering its doors, he with 
all practicable dispatch prepares and publishes his "Vindication," in which, 
vouching the public records and correspondence, as well as the recollection of 
the President, to whom it is addressed, for the accuracj' of his facts, he chal- 
lenges, what has never si^ice appeared, the refutation or denial of one of them. It is 
ti'ue, the press, from that day to this, has teemed with denunciation and abuse 
by his political enemies and their descendants, contained in newspaper essays, 
in pamphlets, and in historical and biographical memoirs, compiled from the 
correspondence of these very accusers and parties to the transaction ; but on 
examining all these, it will be seen, that in none of these numerous publica- 
cations, pervading and perverting the literature and history of our country, has 
any attempt to disprove, and, except by the wholly imscrupulous and scurrilous, 
none to deny a single /ac< or document adduced in the "Vindication." They 
all consist of mere forced and unnatural inferences from Mr. Fauchet's first 
letter, afterwards so fully explained by him, which only the malignity of party 

.^pstility could invent, or the gi'ossest and blindest party bigotry could entertain. 

f And it is a fact, not a little significant, that whilst the published letters and 
papers of Washington, to whom the "Vindication" was addressed, contain a 
number of letters written by him on this subject anterior to its publication, all 
evincing the remarkable extent to which his feelings had been irritated, his 
judgment warped, towards his long-tried friend ; yet they contain no syllable 
from Washington's pen, written after the publication of the "Vindication," de- 
nying or even questioning the truth of any portion of it ! The fact of such a 
denial by AVashington, rests solely on the catch-penny production by Rufus 
Griswold, entitled "The Republican Court of Washington" — a mere compilation 
of idle gossip, scandalous tales, and silly traditions, the falsehood of which has 
been demonstrated in some cases, and known in many more] in which he repre- 
sents Washington as making this denial in language, and with oaths and vio- 
lence, the brutality of which "alarmed the ladies at his table, who were gathered 



VI 

together in the middle of the room, like a flock of partridges in a field when a 
hawk is in the neighborhood." 

The only other man, it is believed, who ever ventured to deny or question the 
truth of any of the statements contained in the "Vindication," was William 
Cobbett, in his pamphlet entitled "A New Year's Gift for the Democrats, by 
Peter Porcupine." The notorious want of principle, political and moral, of this 
venal writer, who alternately advocated and denounced both parties in England 
and America, and the flagrant scurrility and mendacity of his writings, consti- 
tute a sufiicient antidote to the poison of his unquestionable ingenuity and want 
of candor. An illustration of this is found in the argument used in the pamphlet 
just alluded to, that, if Mr. Randolph had been really innocent of the charges 
brought against him based on the intercepted letter of Fauchet, instead of fol- 
lowing Fauchet to Rhode Island, and there, as ho charges, concocting with 
Fauchet the explanation of the letter, he would have remained quietly in Phila- 
deliihia, and demanded of Washington, that he should bring back lauchet to Phil- 
adelphia, and there, confronting him with the accused, call on him to prove his 
accusation — while Fauchet was anxiously watching, in Rhode Island, for the op- 
portunity, which in a few days presented itself, of leaving a country and govern- 
ment, with whom he was greatly displeased, and of escaping the British frigate, 
which just outside the harbor, was watching to capture the French ship in which 
he was to sail. Plausible and deceptive to the ignorant or unreflecting, as this 
idea was, and was intended to be, no one knew better than William Cobbett, 
when he penned it, that the President of the United States had no more 
authority or control over the French Minister's person or movements, than over 
those of the King of England or of the Sultan of Turkey ; whilst the state of 
feeling between them was the opposite extreme of that, which would induce 
Fauchet to subject himself to a far less degree of inconvenience and hazard, 
than his return to Philadelphia would have caused him. And yet from this 
pamphlet, published immediately after the "Vindication," has been drawn every 
false inference and argument — to facts it scarcely made pretension — which con- 
stitute all that has been written and published on this subject, in every variety 
of form, fi-om that day to this, by the partizan writers and book-makers, chiefly 
the descendants and compilers of the papers of Mr. Randolph's political enemies 
and prosecutors. 

The most prominent of these is a book called "Memoirs of the Administra- 
tions of Washington and John Adams, edited from the papers of Oliver Wolcott, 
Secretary of the Treasury," (cotemporaneously with Mr. Randolph, and his 
chief enemy and accuser,) "by George Gibbs," Wolcott's grand-son, it is 
believed. This book contains, on this subject, merely Wolcott's own repetition 
of the same charges against Mr. Randolph already examined, which he had 
been the chief actor in preferring, and the abusive correspondence on the subject 
between him and his intimate personal and political parti zans, who derived 
their information and opinions from him. It discloses, too, the fact,* that^ Wol- 
cott employed spies, to ascertain secretly how, where, and with whom Mr. Fandolph 
spent each moment of his time, day and night, while in Newport, and that all 
the evidences of treason which, even in this way, he could procure, were, that 
" when Mr. Randolph aTrived there, the boardiyig-houses being full, he took lodg- 



Vol. I., pp. 296-7. 



vu 

ings in a private house, procured for him by the keeper of the house where h 
dieted:" that the inquisitor, having asked "the owner of thii< house and his 
.wife such (questions, as he thought would lead to a discovery of what he tcished to 
knoio, could only learn, that between the part of the house where the family 
resided and where Mr. Randolph lodged there was no communication, and that" 
(as a necessary consequence,) "the front door of the house was left unlocked, 
that he might go in and out at what times he pleased" — the inquisitor adds, 
"without observation;" that this same inquisitor, prying into and violating the 
confidence and sanctity of unreserved conversation at a private dinner-table at 
Newport, had heard a gossipping tale ; that in such a conversation, expressions 
of great disappointment and chagrin at the ill success of his mission, accompa- 
nied by praises of Hamilton and co7itemptuous expressions towards Mr. Randolph, 
had escaped the lips of Fauchet — of Fauchet, who, to sustain these calumnies 
against Mr. Randolph, is, in the same breath, alleged to be his accomplice in 
concocting a false certificate to his entire innocence ! ! 

In the jjreface to this book, its editor, in excusing his admitted "harshness, 
with which he has treated political opponents, whose enmities have long since 
died with them," avows, that "he has felt himself not only the vindicator, but 
in some sort the avenger of a by-gone party and a buried race." And this is 
the temper in which he undertakes to writes History ! ! 

The space allotted to this Preface forbids extending it by fm-ther extracts 
from these works. The last may be taken as a fair specimen of them all. In 
many of them, and particularly in Griswold's book, it is studiously attempted, 
by both insinuation and bold assertion, to create tlie impression that even Mr. 
Randolph's /mw(/s deemed his "Vindication" unsatisfactory. Let us briefly 
enquire into the truth of this. Reference might be here made to the well-known 
fact, that to the day of his death Mr. Randolph enjoyed the cordial and intimate 
friendship and confidence of such men as James Madison, James Monioe, and 
neai-ly every one of those great and good^jnen of his day who had not been 
actually engaged in the conspiracy against him, which led to his resignation, of 
the written evidences of which fact Ave are deprived only by the loss and 
destruction, after his death, of his papers and correspondence. But of the utter 
falsehood of this intimation we have the published evidence, not only in the 
puolic journals of that day, but in a most able and conclusive defence of Mr. 
Randolph, contained in a pamphlet entitled "Political Truth," published at 
Philadelphia, by S. H. Smith, in 1796. The author of this pamphlet, whose 
name the editor of this has yet been unable to discover, but whose style and 
arguments proclaim him to be inferior to none, declares that, "unswayed by 
party motive, he means not to join in the general clamor against every leading 
measure of the government;" that he agrees entirely with neither party. ' "In 
deciding," he says, "upon the guilt or innocence of Mr. Randolph, it cannot be 
expected, that every chai'ge urged by malice or folly should receive a circum- 
stantial investigation. All of them, however modified by the moulds in which they 
have been cast,* may be included under a few general heads. Instead of 
stating or discussing specifically the nature or the tendency of those political 
ephemerides, whose life was inglorious as it was short, I shall pursue truth in 
her most direct path, by analyzing the contents of No. 10, with the illustrating 



' [Note —These wonls italicised by the Editor.] 



VUl 

papers Nos. 3 and 6, so far as their contents relate to Mr. Randolph ; and in 
this statement, aiming at rigid impartiality, it shall be my endeavor to lose sight 
of that cloud of terrifying tales, which, during a period of enigmatical alarm,* 
darkened the political horizon." 

After an impartial review and conclusive refutation of all these charges 
against Mr. Randolph, founded on Fauchet's intercepted dispatches, this writer 
adds : " During the whole progress of this discussion, no advantage has been 
taken of Mr. Fauchet's certificate. The ground, which might be taken, inde- 
pendently of any controverted documents, was believed to be immovably .firm. 
It has equalled every expectation, and the integrity of Mr. Randolph stands un- 
shaken by the rude tempest that assails it. It looks to no distant period as the 
fera of universal triumph and of retributive justice." He afterwards well argues 
to shew that both Fauchet's certificate and Mr. Randolph's statement are entitled 
to great weight ; adding — "As for the facts which Mr. l!andolph states, their 
truth or falsehood is known to the President, to the heads of Departments, and 
to other leading members in our councils. Have these persons all of them an 
infatuated regard for Mr. Randolph ? Would they sacrifice truth to the pre- 
servation of his tainted fame ? Until this disposition can be attributed to them, 
the statement of Mr. Randolph will be deemed, if not perfectly accurate, sub- 
stantially true " 

In turning over, recently, the pages of a collection of autograph letters in the 
possession of a gentleman of Philadelphia,! the editor's eye accidentally fell 
upon the name of Mr. Randolph, in a letter of Gen. Horatio Gates to James 
"VVormley, Esq., dated "New York, 11th Januai-y, 1796," from which he has 
been kindly favored, by the possessor, with the following extract of the part 
relating to Mr. Randolph : " I have read with attention Mr. Randolph's pamph- 
let, and from so able a defence, I am convinced he had most degrading and 
undeserved treatment; and this, I trust, will be the sentiment of every impartial 
judge and every friend of his counti'y." 

Nor to his fi-iends only is confined this sentiment; but from his political ene- 
mies has the force and power of truth extorted testimony to his innocence and 
integrity, scarcely weaker in terms, and stronger from the character of the 
sources from which it comes. 

In another of the publications heretofore described, entitled "Public Men of 
the Revolution," by J. T. S. Sullivan, thoroughly partizan in its character, after 
giving the same version of the history of the Fauchet letter that has been 
adopted by all Mr. Randolph's enemies, the author uses the following language : 
"At this day, candor compels us to say Mr. Randolph had no treasonable views 
with regard to his country." The course which Mr. Randolph thought fit, 
during his continuance in Washington's Cabinet, to prescribe to himself and to 
pursue, in keeping aloof from the strifes then growing up between the two 
opposing political parties in the country, had produced no little alienation of 
feeling between Mr. Jefferson, the head and soul of one of those parties, and 
himself. Yet Mr. Jefferson, in a published letter to Mr. Giles, dated Monticello, 
Dec. 31st, 1795, in which he derides Mr. Randolph's attempt at "adherence to 
right, without regard to party," as absurd, if not mischievous, says: "I thank 
you much for the pamphlet. His narrative is so straight and plain, that even 



* These words italicised by the Editor. 

t Francis M. Etling, Esq., Secretary of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. 



IX 

those -who did not know him will acquit him of the charge of bribery. Those 
who knew him had done it from the first." But a further accumulation of tes- 
timony on this point could add nothing to the weight of what has already been 
given. 

In this connection, however, it would not be just to overlook the use which 
has been made of a letter of Mr. Randolph to the Hon. Bushrod Washington, 
dated July 2d, 1810, near the close of Mr. Randolph's life, and after he was 
admonished by disease of its approaching termination.* In that letter, Mr. Ran- 
dolph declares, that "he does not retain the smallest degree of that feeling 
which roused him fifteen years before against some individuals. For the world 
contained no treasure, deception or charm, which can seduce him from the con- 
solation of being in a state of good-will towards all mankind ;" and expresses 
his contrition that he sufi"ered his irritation, let the cause be what it might, to use 
some of those expressions respecting him," (Gen. Washington,) "which, at that 
moment of his indifference to the ideas ef the world, he wished to recall, as 
being inconsistent with his subsequent conviction." From this letter, in which 
Mr. Randolph neither retracts nor acknowledges error in one statement of fact in his 
"Vindication," nor that all he said in it was not fully justified by the facts, an 
attempt has been made to impute to him a recantation of his " Vindication," 
and an acknowledgment in it of his having used "asperity" of language, or 
even, as Griswold's veracious volume has it, "vulgar and violent abuse." For 
the refutation of this last calumny, nothing is needed but a perusal of the "Vin- 
dication" itself, the singularly moderate tone and language of which strikes 
every reader with surprise, and can only be accounted for in the author's long- 
accustomed alfectionate respect for Washington. 

But, to use the language of the author of " Political Truth :" " If the charges 
against Mr. Randolph are so futile, as we think we have proved them to be, 
it will be natural to ask, in what motive could they have originated ? Can we 
deprave human nature, by supposing that the gratification of a malevolent dis- 
position gave them birth ? Such might be the opinion of the misanthrope ; but 
it is far from being ours. It is the common frailty of politicians, in annexing 
importance to an end to be answered, to disregard the honesty of the means 
used for accomplishing it. Those who urged, with original eloquence, the crim- 
inality of Mr. Randolph, had an end to answer. The treaty must be ratified 
at any price. Mr. Randolph appears, at one time, to have prodiiced doubt in 
the mind of the President on the propriety of ratifying ; at another time, to 
have converted doubt into determination not to ratify, until explanations were 
made, and assurances given by the British court, which have not been received 
to this day. While the influence of Mr. Randolph remained unimpaired, this 
determination, it was feared, would be inflexible. Hence the necessity of dimin- 
ishing an influence so inauspicious to those, whom the President had declared to 
be but successors in form to the deliberative talents of their predecessors. Their 
situation was an awkward one. There is a delicate, a refined sense of honor, 
which has hitherto constrained the minister to disdain continuing in office, after 



* When Ihi8 letter was written, the Christian frame of mind, which at all times slrikin'ly dis- 
tinguished Mr. Randolph, had been heightened and rendered almost over sensitive, by the recent 
death of an idolized wife, the sudden prostration by paralysis of his talented, accomplished and 
only son, and the sure approaches of the same disease menacing his own enfeebled and declin- 
ing healtli. 



he has lost the confidence of the person who appointed him. How far their 
influence was in the wane, if it was not entirely paralyzed, will appear from 
the sentiment of the President just quoted. Here we have a clue to the blaze 
of resentment which shortly after reddened the political sky. Mr. Randolph's 
reputation must be annihilated. The means used in the accomplishment of this 
pious fraud are before the public. How far they were founded on a knowledge 
ef human nature, the successful issue proves. If it be alleged, that a determi- 
nation by our chief magistrate on a measure of national magnitude — a measure 
which had drawn forth the feelings of a nation — a measure which one sentiment 
pronounced auspicious or threatening to our best interests — could not have been 
supposed to be influenced by resentment towards a man, who does not appear to 
Lave deceived him in any thing respecting the treaty, it can only be answered 
that, however rational the conjecture, events have proved it to be misapplied. 
If this was not the motive which gave the treaty executive ratification, in 
direct opposition to a resolution formed and sent across the Atlantic, I ask what 
the motive was ? As sophistry has not assigned a diff"erent motive, truth may 
be permitted to be silent." 

Again: "It would interfere with the limited nature of this performance to 
enquire how far the reason of the President co-operated with his passion in this 
transaction. Sufiicient has been stated to convince every man, that he was acted 
upon by an impulse foreign from his own judgment, and that in the eventful 
act which ratified the treaty, he yielded to the influence of others." * * * 

To this it may be added, that it had long been the policy and the practice of 
these same parties to impress upon the mind of the President the belief, that 
every attempt by the opposite political party to deny or even question the wis- 
dom or propriety of any measure of his administration, was an intended oflFen- 
sive attack upon himself personally, the enormity of which was studiously exag- 
gerated, by contrasting it with the love and veneration in which he knew he was 
deservedly held in the hearts of his coiintrymen. The comments of Fauchet in 
his intercepted letter, upon the men and measures of the government, so con- 
temptuous and irritating past forgiveness to these same parties, might be also 
held, and at least misconstrued as disrespectful and offensive to the President. 
To fix upon Mr. Randolph, then, by any means, the imputation of having parti- 
cipated in their origin or expression, while he enjoyed the President's intimate 
confidence, was but too well and successfully calculated, especially if well man- 
aged with dramatic mystery and excitement, to ai'ouse the indignation and relent- 
less aversion of a mind like Washington's. Hence the extraordinary success of 
their scheme. 

In performing, however feebly, what has been undertaken in this Preface, the 
Editor has not failed to appreciate the difiiculties to be encountered, in all their 
impressive magnitude. A weaker faith in the eternal power of Tkuth would 
have quailed before them. He is not unmindful of the sad lesson taught by the 
experience of every observant mind, that such is the depraved proclivity of the 
human heart, in its most improved state, eagerly to adopt, and reluctantly, and 
perhaps never, wholly to relinquish the belief in any moral delinquency of a 
fellow-man, as if our own standing were thereby relatively exalted ; that cal- 
umny often acquires, from the very enormity and improbability of its accusa- 
tions, its strongest and most ineradicable hold upon human credulity. He feels 
hut too sensibly the strength which this malign influence has derived from the 
fact that, while Mr. Randolph's enemies and their descendants have, since his 



XI 

death, so assiduously repeated and perpetuated with embellishments these calum- 
nies, once refuted, the loss of his papers and the situation of his descendant 
has hitherto precluded even this feeble attempt to do him justice. And lasts 
though not least, he cannot but be oppressed by the consciousness, that in pub- 
lishing, aught which might detract in any degree, however slight, and though 
but in a single instance, from that veneration, love and admiration, which en- 
shrines the name of Washington in a nation's heart, he performs a duty as 
repulsive to the prejudices, most natural and venial as they are, of every reader, 
as it would be unwelcome to himself, were he not irresistibly impelled to it 'by 
justice to one no less worthy veneration and regard. The name and fame of 
Washington needs no apotheosis, claiming for him infallibility and exemption 
from every human imperfection, to preserve its hallowed memory in the- minds 
and hearts of posterity, as the greatest of human heroes. Still less would its 
lustre be enhanced or its foundation in truth — its only firm and lasting fomida- 
tion — be strengthened, by sacrificing to it the fame and character of one, whose 
title to our respect and admiration was for many years stamped by the confi- 
dence, respect and intimate friendship of Washington himself, and to whom 
there is no small reason to believe — a belief which Mr. Randolph's correspond- 
ence, if preserved, might have converted into certainty — he would have himself 
done ample justice, had his life been spared longer after the exciting period of 
his last administration. The "aera of universal triumph and of retributive jus- 
tice to the integrity" and fame of Mr. Randolph so confidently predicted by 
the author of " Political Truth," has at length come, and, unbiassed by the pre- 
judices and passions of party strife, undeterred by the panic dread of French 
anarchy in America, unawed by the overshadowing influence and name oi Wash- 
ington, now happily elevated above the reach of those influences, which attached 
themselves to it, only to dishonor it in promoting their own selfish or less 
worthy \iews, we may at length, viewing these occurrences in the calm lio-ht of 
truth and history, say — 

Fiat Justitia, euat Ccelum. 



STATEMENT OF FACTS, &c. 



On Wednesday, the lOtli of August 1795, I was going to the Presi- 
dent's, as usual, at 9 o'clock in the morning; when his steward, Mr. 
Kidd, came to me at Mr. Rawle's in Market-street ; and informed me, 
that the President desired me to postpone my visit, until half after 
ten. I supposed at first, that he might wish to have the latest hour 
for writing by the Southern mail of that day, or perhaps to ride out. 
But, as I was desirous of asking him a short question, which would 
determine me as to the manner of executing a piece of business, to be 
carried to him that morning; I inquired of Mr. Kidd, if he was then 
occupied with any particular person ? and I was answered, that the 
President was every moment expecting some gentlemen. Accordingly 
I turned to the office ; and at the appointed hour called at the Presi- 
dent's. I desired the servant, who attended at the door, to tell the 
President, that I was come. But upon being informed, that Mr. Wol- 
cott and Colonel Pickering had been there for some time, I went up 
stairs : and began to think, that the steward had committed a mis- 
take. I supposed, that a consultation with the heads of departments 
had been intended to be held by the President earlier in the day, and 
that it might be proper for me to explain the cause of my delay. But 
when I entered the President's room, he, with great formality, rose 
from his chair; and Messrs. Wolcott and Pickering were also marked 
in their efforts to a like formality. I therefore resolved to wait for 
the unfolding of this mysterious appearance. Very few words passed 
between the President and myself; and those which fell from him, 
shewed plainly to me, that he wished to hurry to something else. 
Immediately afterwards, he put his hand into his pocket, and pulling 
out a large letter, said something of this nature : " Mr. Randolph ! 
here is a letter, which I desire you to read, and make such explana- 
tions, as you choose." I took it, and found it to be a letter, written 
in French by Mr. Fauchet, on about fifteen pages of large paper. On 
reading the letter, I perceived, that two of the most material papers, 
which were called the dispatches No. o and 6, were not with it. I 
observed to the President, that I presumed the letter to be an inter- 



cepted one. He nodded his head. I then said, that at that time I 
could recollect very little, -which would throw light on the affair ; but 
I would go over the letter, and make such remarks as occurred to me. 
I did so ; but being thus suddenly, and without any previous intima- 
tion, called upon before a council, which was minutely prepared at 
every point; not seeing two of the most essential references; and 
having but an imperfect idea of most of the circumstances alluded to, 
I could rely only on two principles, which were established in my mind; 
the first was, that according to my sincere belief, I never made an im- 
proper communication to Mr. Fauchet ; the second was, that no money 
was ever received by me from him, nor any overture, made to him by 
me for that purpose. My observations therefore were but short. How- 
ever, I had some recollection of Mr. Fauchet having told me of machina- 
tions against the French Republic, Governor Clinton and myself; and 
thinking it not improbable, that the overture, which was spoken of in 
No. 6, might be, in some manner, connected with that business, and 
might relate to the obtaining of intelligence, I mentioned my impres- 
sion ; observing at the same time, that I would throw my ideas on 
paper. The President desired Messrs. Wolcott and Pickering to put 
questions to me. This was a style of proceeding, to which I would 
not have submitted, had it been pursued. But Mr. Pickering put no 
question; and Mr. Wolcott only asked an explanation of what I had 
said, as to Governor Clinton and myself. This I did not object to 
repeat, nearly as I had spoken it. Had I not been deprived of No. 6, 
the terms used in it, '' of sheltering from Briti&h persecution," would 
probably have reminded me fully of the supposed machinations of Mr. 
Hammond and others. As it was, I mentioned the circumstance gene- 
rally in the President's room, who remembered to have heard some- 
thing of a meeting, held at New-York by Mr. Hammond and others 
during the last summer. While I was appealing to the President's 
memory for communications, which I had made to him on this subject; 
and after he had said, with some warmth, that he should not conceal 
any thing, which he recollected, or words to that effect ; he was called 
out to receive from Mr. Willing the copy of an address, which was to 
be presented to him the next day by the merchants. While he was out 
of the room, I asked, how the President came by Mr. Fauchet's letter. 
Mr. Wolcott said, ''The President will, I presume, explain that to 3"ou." 
Upon the return of the President, he desired me to step into another 
room, while he should converse with Messrs. Wolcott and Pickering 
upon what I had said. I retired; and on revolving the subject, I 
came to this conclusion ; that if the President had not been worked up 
to prejudge the case, he would not have acted in a manner, so precipitate 
in itself, and so injurious and humiliating to me : and that he would in 



the first instance, have interrogated me in private. After an absence 
of about three quarters of an hour, I returned into the President's 
room ; when he told me that as I wished to put my remarks on paper, 
he desired that I would. I replied, that it should be done ; but that I 
did not expect to remember much of the deiail ; for, in fact, I had then 
no distinct conception of what No. 3, and No. 6, might contain • except 
that it would seem from the inference in No. 10, as if I had encourajred 
the insurrection. The President then asked me, how soon I could finish 
my remarks, I answered, as soon as possible. But I declared to him 
at the same instant, that I would not continue in the office one second 
after such treatment. I accordingly wrote to him the following letter: 

Philadelphia, Aug. 19, 1795. 

Sir, Immediately upon leaving your house this morning, I went to the oflBce 
for the department of state, -where I directed the room, in which I usually sat, 
to be locked up, and the key to remain with the messenger. My object in this 
was to let all the papers rest, as they stood. 

Upon my return home, I reflected calmly and maturely upon the proceedings 
of this morning. Two facts immediately presented themselves ; one of which 
was, that my usual hour of calling upon the President had not only been post- 
poned for the opportunity of consulting others upon a letter of a foreign minister, 
highly interesting to ray honor, before the smallest intimation to me ; but they 
seemed also to be perfectly acquainted with its contents, and were requested to 
ask questions for their satisfaction : The other was, that I was desired to retire 
into another room, until you should converse with them, upon what I had said. 

Your confidence in me, Sir, has been unlimited ; and, I can truly affirm, una- 
bused. My sensations then cannot be concealed, when I find that confidence so 
immediately withdrawn without a word or distant hint being previously dropped 
to me! This, Sir, as I mentioned in your room, is a situation in which I cannot 
hold my present office, and therefore I hereby resign it. 

It will not, however, be concluded from hence, that I mean to relinquish the 
inquiry. No, Sir; far from it. I will also meet any inquiry, and to prepare for 
it, if I learn this morning, that there is a chance of overtaking Mr. Fauohet 
before he sails, I will go to him immediately. 

I have to beg the favour of you to permit me to be furnished with a copy of 
the letter; and I will prepare an answer to it ; which I perceive that I cannot 
do, as I wish, merely upon the few hasty memoranda which I took with my 
pencil. 

I am satisfied. Sir, that you will acknowledge one piece of justice due on this 
occasion, which is, that until an inquiry can be made, the affair shall continue 
in secrecy under your injunction. For, after pledging myself for a more specific 
investigation of all these suggestions, I here most solemnly deny, that n.\\y over- 
ture ever came from me, which was to produce money to me, or any others for 
me ; and that in any manner, directly or indirectly, was a shilling ever received 
by me ; nor was it ever contemplated by me, that one shilling should be applied 
by Mr. Fauchet to any purpose relative to the insurrection. 

I presume, Sir, that the paper. No. 6, to which he refers, is not in your pos- 



session. Otherwise you -would have shewn it to me. If I am mistaken, I cannot 
doubt, that you will suffer me to have a copy of it. 

I shall pass my accounts at the Auditor's and Comptroller's office ; and trans- 
mit to you a copy. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, with due respect, 

Your most obedient servant, 

EDM: RANDOLPH. 
The President of the U. S. 

To the preceding letter I received this answer. 

To Eimund Randolph, Esq. 

Sir, Your resignation of the OiBce of State is received. 

Candor induces me to give you, in a few words, the following narrative of 

facts. The letter from Mr. Fauchet, with the contents of which you were 

made acquainted yesterday, was, as you supposed, an intercepted one. It was 

sent by Lord Grenville to Mr. Hammond ; — by him put into the hands of the 
Secretary of the Treasury ; — by him shewn to the Secretary of War and the 
Attorney General; — and a translation thereof was made by the foi^mer, for me. — 

At the time Mr. Hammond delivered the Jetter, he requested of Mr. Wolcott 
an attested copy, which was accordingly made by Mr. Thornton, his late secre- 
tary ; and which is understood to remain at present with Mr. Bond. Whether 

it is known to others, I am unable to decide. 

Whilst you are in pursuit of means to remove the strong suspicions arising " 
from his letter, no disclosure of its contents will be made by me ; and I will en- 
join the same on the public officers who are acquainted with the purport of it ; 
unless something shall appear to render an explanation necessary on the part of 
government; — of which I will be the judge. 

A copy of Mr. Fauchet's letter shall be sent to you. No. 6, referred to 

therein I have never seen. 

Go. WASHINGTON. 
Philadelphia, 20th Aug. 1795. 

Having learnt, on the 20th of August, 1795, that the French frigate 
Medusa, which was to carry Mr. Fauchet to France, had not sailed ten 
days before j I left Philadelphia in the afternoon of the 21st for New- 
port in Rhode-Island. But being detained on the road by a disappoint- 
ment in some necessary papers, and by other unavoidable causes, I did 
not arrive there until Monday, the 31st of August 1795, between the 
hours of eleven and twelve in the morning. I immediately proceeded 
to visit Mr. Fauchet; and told him, that his letter of the 10th of Bru- 
inaire (October 31st, 1794,) had been intercepted, and was in the hands 
of the President of the United States. After observing that he must 
recollect, how injuriously he had treated the government, others, and 
myself, in that letter, I informed him, that I had come for the purpose 
of demanding an explanation ; but that I desired none, which was not 
consistent with truth and justice. I then mentioned the different 
points : and although in some particulars we did not remember alike ; 



yet I required him to give me a certificate according to bis memory. 
He appointed 8 o'clock in the next morning for the delivery of it to 
me; and understanding from him, that the Medusa could not sail, 
while the British ship of war, Africa, lay at the mouth of the harbour, 
I did not object to the time which he took. When I knocked at Mr. 
Fauchet's door at the last-mentioned hour, his servant informed me, 
that he was directed to tell me, that the promised certificate would not 
be ready until about 12 o'clock : I desired the servant to call Mr. Fau- 
chet down stairs. When he came down, he said, that he was engaged 
in preparing the paper : that it could not be ready until 12 or 1 o'clock, 
and that as soon as it was ready, he would send or bring it to my lodg- 
ings. He also agreed upon my application, to answer any questions, 
which I should put to him ; and it is known to a gentleman, whom I 
can name, that I had intended to put several questions to him, before 
Mr. Marchant, the judge of the District of Ehode-Island, and Mr. Mal- 
bone, a member of the House of Representatives, from whom I meant 
to ask the favor of attending to the business. While I was expecting 
to hear from Mr. Fauchet, it was said that the Medusa was weighing 
anchor. Astonished at this intelligence, I ran up to Mr. Fauchet's 
house ; and found, that he had gone ofi". By the friendly assistance of 
Mr. Peck, the Marshal of the district, I dispatched the swiftest sailing 
boat in Newport in quest of the Medusa^ with the following letter to 
Mr. Fauchet. 

Newport, Sept. 1, 1795. 
Sir, I am this moment informed, that the frigate has sailed : and I have been 
to your house. They say that you are on board ; and that you have left no 
paper for me, according to what you promised. My innocence of the insinua- 
tions, arising from your letter, you not only know, but have twice acknowledged 
to me. I send a boat therefore in a hurry to obtain the papers, which go to this 
point. I am, Sir, your humble servant, 

EDMUND RANDOLPH. 

The boat having returned without overtaking the Medusa, Mr. Pecii 
indorsed this certificate on the letter. 

September 1, 1795. 
Mr. Randolph, being greatly agitated at finding that Mr. Fauchet had gone 
off, requested me to employ a boat, at any expense, to go immediately in quest 
of the Medusa ; in order to carry the within letter to Mr. Fauchet ; I did in 
consequence employ the swiftest sailing vessel in the port, with instructions to 
pursue the frigate, as long as there was any chance of overtaking her. She 
went off several miles to sea, but could not overtake her. 

WILLIAM PECK, 
Marshal, Rhode-Island district. 



Capt. Caleb Gardner, who acted as pilot to tlie Medusa, having 
returned to Newport, brought me from Mr. Fauchet a letter, of which 
the following is a translation. 

On board of the Medusa. 15 Fnictidor, in the Zd year. 

JOSEril FAUCHET TO MR. RANDOLPH. 

Sir, I have just transmitted to Citizen Adet, the minister of the Republic in 
Philadelphia, the packet which I destined for you. He Tvill send you a certified 
copy of my lettei-, with which, I hope, you will be satisfied. 

Accept my esteem, 

JOSEPH FAUCHET. 

The painful embarrassment, which the sudden sailing of the Medusa 
had occasioned to me, induced me to request from Capt. Gardner a 
statement of the facts, relative thereto ; and he gave me this certificate. 

This is to certify that Thursday"^ morning, September 1st, at 8 o'clock ; the 
weather being very stormy, and a very large sea, the British ship Africa, was 
obliged to leave her station at the light-house, and go into the Naraganset bay : 
in consequence of which Capt. Simeon, of the frigate Medusa, sent for the sub- 
scriber to embrace this opportunity to go to sea: at the same lime sent for the 
ambassador, Mr. Fauchet, and all the passengers, at 9 o'clock. They could not 
get on board until 11 o'clock. From 9 o'clock until that time, the ship was 
short a peak ; still detained for the passengers. In six minutes after they came 
on board we cut our cable and went to sea ; leaving Mr. Provost on shore, one 
of the passengers. The weather was so foggy, that very often we could not see 
the land in beating the ship out of the harbor. Mr. Fauchet, all the time the 
subscriber was on board, which was until half past one o'clock, was in the cabin 
■writing. The British ship Africa, came to sail two hours after the Medusa was 
at sea. 

Newport, Sept. 2, 1795. CALEB GARDNER. 

N. B. The whole time I was on board the frigate, before her getting under 
sail, the captain discovered the greatest impatience. He repeatedly sent on 
shore to bring off Mr. Fauchet ; expressed great concern, when my boat arrived 
without him ; and when Mr. Fauchet did arrive at the frigate, treated him with 
great coolness and aj>parent indignation at his long delay. 

CALEB GARDNER. 

These and many other particulars, which manifest the distressing diffi- 
culties, into which I was thrown, can be proved by a respectable gentle- 
man, now in Philadelphia. — Agreeably to the information of Mr. Fau- 
chet, Mr. Adet sent me a copy of his certificate, the translations of 
which, and of the dispatches No. 3 and No. 6, which are referred to in the 
letter No. 10, and were also furnished by Mr. Adet, are as follow : — 



' Mr. Gardner has misstated the day. It sbould be Tuesday. 



Mr. Fauchefs Certificate. 

Mr. Randolph requests me to examine a Dispatch No. 10, addressed to the 
Commissary of exterior relations ; which has been transmitted to the President 
of the United States. I believe that I am bound to no explanations upon my 
communications to my government ; when they are obtained by dark means of 
which I am ignorant ; are commented upon without doubt, and mutilated accord- 
ing to the passions of those who use means so noble and generous. But I owe 
to Mr. Randolph full and entire justice. I will render it to him with pleasure. 
Eveiy thing which could be interpreted to his disadvantage will not leave, I 
hope, after the explanation which I shall give, any doubt upon the mind even of 
those who have transmitted the letter to the President. The means which I 
shall employ will be very simple. This will be to cite the Dispatches to which I 
refer in my No. 10. Some preliminary reflections are necessary to explain them. 

On my arrival on this continent the President gave me the most positive 
assurance, that he was the friend of the French cause. Mr. Randolph often 
repeated to me the same assurance. It was impossible for me not to give faith 
to it, (in spite of some public events relative to France which gave me some 
inquietude,) especiaDy when the Secretary of State constantly took pains to 
convince mo of the sentiments of good-will of his government for my Republic. 
It was doubtless to confirm me in this opinion that he communicated to me, 
without authority, as I supposed, that part of Mr. Jay's instructions which for- 
bade him to do any thing which should derogate from the engagements of the 
United States with France. My error, which was dear to me, was prolonged 
only by the continual efl^orts of Mr. Randolph to calm my fears both upon the 
treaty with England and upon the effect which it might produce on France. He 
was therefore far from confiding to me any act, any intention of government by 
virtue of any concert with me, or in consequence of any emolument received 
by him, or for the expectation or hope of any recompense promised, or with any 
other view than to maintain a good harmony between France and the United 
States. As to the communications which he has made to me at different times, 
they were only of opinions, the greater part, if not the whole of which, I have 
heard circulated as opinions. Q also recollect that on one occasion, at least, 
which turned upon public measures, he observed to me, that he could not enter 
into details upon some of them, because by doing so he should violate the duties 
of his office. From whence I have concluded and believe that he never commu- 
nicated to me what his duty would reprove. I will observe here, that none of 
his conversations with me concluded without his giving me the idea that the 
President was a man of integrity, and a sincere friend to France. This explains 
in part what I meant by the terms, "his precious confessions." I proceed to 
other details relative thereto. I could allude only to explanations on his part 
upon matters which had caused to me some inquietude: And I have never in- 
sinuated, nor could I insinuate in that letter, that I suspected on his part even 
the most distant corruption. These explanations had equally for their object 
my diflFerent conversations upon Western affairs, as may be seen in the sequel of 
this declaration. 

When I speak in this same paragraph in these words, "Besides, the precious 
confessions of Mr. Randolph alone cast upon all which happens a satisfactory 
light." I have still in view only the explanations of which I have spoken above; 
and I must confess that very often I have taken for confessions what he might 
have to communicate to me by virtue of a secret authority. And many things 



8 

which in the first instant I had considered as confessions were the subject of 
public conversations. I will say more. I will say, that I have had more than 
suspicions that certain confidences which have been made to me, were only to 
sound my private opinions, and the intentions of the French Republic ; and I 
must appeal to the testimony of him, who this days claims mine. He must 
know if I ever endeavored to meddle in the interior affairs of America, or even 
to influence, by any means whatsoever, the sentiments of men whose talents had 
called them to the head of affairs. 

All that is read from these words, "I proceed then, &c." to these "The first 
was preparing, &c." is to be considered only as my own reflections arising from 
private information or from public reports, and not from any communications of 
Mr. Randolph. 

I have spoken of a conversation which Citizen Le- Blanc and myself had with 
Mr. Pv,andolph, and which I had communicated in my No. 3. It is easy to see 
that I consider the conclusions which I draw from it, as pure and simple conjec- 
tures, as I express myself. This is an esiract from that dispatch which I de- 
clare to be true. When I relate conversations of Mr. Randolph, I can easily 
suppose that as he spoke sometimes in English, most commonly in French, and 
I spoke always French, we might not have understood one another perfectly. 
And when I have not quoted Mr. Randolph expressly in the whole course of any 
observations, it is not under his authority that I speak. 

As my dispatch, No. 3, treats of different subjects at the same time, I shall 
extract from it only what concerns him, with the help of my own memory and 
in consequence of his questions. 

The conversation which I cite took place in April, 1794. We were speaking 
of some political divisions which manifested themselves in different parts of the 
United States, and of which the public papers gave Bufficieut proofs. lie ap- 
peared to me to be deeply afflicted at the idea of a violent conflict between 
the parties. He hoped to prevent it by the influence which he hoped to acquire 
with the President, who he said generally consulted him, and to whom he told 
truths which probably others concealed from him. I had heard mentioned, and 
I frequently mentioned to him myself, the suspicions which were spread abroad, 
of the artifices of some influential men in the government, who were desirous of 
seeing the French cause ruined, and of uniting America rtu;>re closely with Great 
Britain than with France. He replied to me upon this: The President is the 
mortal enemy of England, for the outrages which she heaps upon the United 
States, and the injustice and perfidy which she shews in her conduct towards 
them ; and the declared friend of France. I can affirm it upon my honor. He 
may, like other men who do not mix generally with the world, be circumvented 
by stratagem, prepared to surprise his judgment; and without doubt if he 
sufi"ers himself to be taken in by any manoeuvres, his popularity would be 
affected by it. He desires to give the Government stability ; others, under the 
pretext of giving energy to it, would siuTound the chief of the Executive with 
more power than the Constitution delegates to him. But in spite of all the 
efforts, and notwithstanding the cause of France and the true spirit of the 
American people are painted to him xmder false colors, he escapes at this 
moment from the snares which are laid for him, and nothing will be able to pre- 
vent him from conducting himself towards Great Britain with the firmness, 
which the repeated outrages of this power demand. This, Mr. Fauchet, is every 
thing, which I am at liberty to say to you. I will always treat with you with 



every frankness, whicli comports ■with my duty. As to myself, I would quit the 
post, vrhich he has confided to me, if I could persuade myself, that he could 
accede to any act, which should aflFect the rights of the people. The bill, of 
which you speak, gives it is true to the Executive, some powers which if they 
should be abused, may wound liberty. I am sincerely affected by it. But I see 
with pleasure, that my reflections on the dreadful crisis, which would result 
from such an abuse, have produced a deep impression on the mind of the Presi- 
dent, who is a man of honor. Let us unite, Mr. Fauchet, let us unite our 
eflforts in drawing close the bonds of the two nations. The friends of liberty are 
for an intimate union with France. The partizans of slavery prefer an alliance 
with England. 

I now come to the explanation of my dispatch, No. 6. A little time after my 
arrival in America, I had requested Mr. Randolph to recommend to me the most 
proper persons with whom he was acquainted in the different states, to be em- 
ployed in the purchase of flour. This request naturally led him to believe that 
there were persons employed in it, as they really were. We had frequent con- 
versations upon the insurrection, and in all of them he manifested an unequiv- 
ocal indignation against the fomenters of it, and a deep afiiiction at the dangers 
of a civil war. I had learned, as my dispatch No. 10, shews, that the English 
were suspected of fomenting and supporting these manoeuvres. I communicated 
my suspicions to Mr. Randolph. I had already communicated to him a Con- 
gress, which at this time was holden at New York. I had communicated to him 
fears, that this Congress would have for its object some manoeuvres against the 
Republic of France, and to render unpopular some virtuous men who were at 
the head of affairs ; to destroy the confidence which existed, on one hand, be- 
tween General Clinton and his fellow-citizens, and on the other, that which 
united the President to Mr. Randolph. He said to me, that I ought to make 
efforts to obtain the proofs of this fact, and he added to me, that if I did so, the 
President would not hesitate to declare himself against all the manoeuvres which 
might be directed against the French republic. Things remained in this situa- 
tion. About the month of July or August, in the last year, he came to see me 
at my country house. It was in the afternoon. He was to go that evening to 
Germantown. We had a private conversation of about twenty minutes. His 
countenance bespoke distress. He said to me, that he was afraid that a civil 
war would soon ravage America. I enquired of him what new information was 
procured. He said that he began to believe that in fact the English were really 
fomenting the insurrection, and that he did not doubt, that Mr. Hammond and 
his Congress would push some measures with respect to the insurrection, with 
an intention of giving embarrassment to the United States. He demanded of 
me, if, as my Republic was itself interested in these manoeuvres, I could not by 
the means of some correspondents procure some information of what was passing. 
I answered him, that I believed I could. He replied upon this, that having 
formed many connections by the means of flour contracts, three or four persons 
among the different contractors might, by talents, energy, and some influence, 
procure the necessary information, and save America from a civil war, by proving 
that England interfered in the troubles of the West. I do not recollect, that he 
gave to me at that time any details upon the manner, in which this discovery 
would produce this last effect. But I perfectly recollect to have heard it said 
by some person or other, that the insurgents would be abandoned by the greatest 
number of those whom they believed to be on their side ; and that the militia 



10 

"would march with cheerfulness, if it were proYed, that the English were at the 
bottom of these manoeuvres. I think therefore, that this was probably the 
manner, in which he conceived that things would be settled ; and that he 
thought, that the insurrection would cease from the want of support. At the 
moment of his mounting his horse, he observed to me, that the men, whom I 
might be able to employ, might perhaps be debtors of English merchants ; that 
in this case they might perhaps be exposed, on the slightest movement which 
they should make in this important affair, to see themselves harrassed by process, 
and even arrested by the pursuits of their creditors. He asked me if the pay- 
ments of the sums which were due to them by virtue of the existing contracts, 
would not be sufficiently early to render these individuals independent of British 
persecution. I confess, that this proposition to obtain this intelligence surprised 
me. I was astonished that the government itself did not procure for itself 
information so precious. And I made the reflections, contained in my letter on 
this affair, because I believed, and do still believe, that all the citizens in the 
United States, ought to endeavour to furnish intelligence so important, without 
being stopped by the fear of English persecution ; and because I moreover 
thought, when I committed my reflections to paper, that it was proposed to 
obtain the foregoing intelligence by assisting with loans those who had contracted 
with me. But now calling to mind all the circumstances, to which the questions 
of ]Mr. Randolph call my attention, I have an intimate conviction that I was 
mistaken in the propositions, which I supposed to have been made to me. 

£ declare moreover, that no name or sum was mentioned to me : that Mr. 
dolph never received, either directly or indirectly, by himself or by another 
for his use, one shilling from myself, by my order, or according to my knowledge, 
hearsay or belief, from any other public ofiicer of France. I declare that he 
never made to me in this respect a single overture ; and that no part of the 
above circumstance has the least relation to him personally. Farther I solemnly 
declare, that from the time of my arrival I have repeated, when an opportunity 
has presented itself, and without doubt often in the presence of Mr. Randolph, 
that the morals of my nation and the candor of my government severely forbid 
the use of money in any circumstances, which could not be publicly avowed.! 
Signed JOSEPH FAUCHET. 

I the undersigned Peter Augustus Adet, Minister Plenipotentiary of the French 
Republic, certify, that the foregoing Copy is absolutely conformable to the 
Declaration which Citizen Fauchet, my predecessor, has written and signed 
with his own hand, and which he has sent me to be lodged in the Archives of 
the French Legation, and in order that a copy conformable thereto may be 
delivered to Mr. Randolph. 

In testimony of which I have signed these presents at Philadelphia, on 
the 5th supplementary day, in the 3d Year of the French Republic, one 
and indivisible. September 27, 1795, (Old Style). 

P. A. ADET. 

Extract from the Political Dispatch, Ko. 3, of Joseph Fauchet, to the Minister of 

Foreign Affairs. 

** Then the. Secretary of State appeared to open himself without reserve. He 
imparted to me the intestine divisions, which were rumbling in the United 
States. The idea of an approaching commotion affected him deeply. He hoped 
to preTcnt it, by the ascendancy which he daily acquired over the mind of the 



11 

President, who consulted him in all affairs, and to whom he told the truth, 
which his colleagues disguised from him. 

"The President of the United States, says he, is the mortal enemy of Eng- 
land ; and the friend of France. I can aiSrm it upon my honor. But not 
mixing with the world, he may be circumvented by the dark manoeuvres of some 
men, who wind themselves in an hundi-ed ways, to draw him into measures, 
which will cause him to lose all his popularity. Under the pretext of giving 
energy to the government, they would absolutely make a monarch of him. 
They deceive him, as to the true spirit of the people ; as well as upon the 
affairs of France. I am sure, that at this moment, he escapes from them, and 
that jn all these perfidious manoeuvres they have not been able to dissuade him 

from pronouncing with vigor against the ministry of England. He has but 

it is impossible for me in conscience to make you this confession. I should be- 
tray the duties of my office. Every thing, which I can say to you, is, that it is 
important for our two nations, that you continue to visit him frequently. He 
will be touched with the proofs of friendship, which you shall testify to him ; 
and I am sure, that this will be an infallible means of causing them to be valued. 
I would quit the post, which he has confided to me, if he could be brought to 
make any attempt upon the rights of the people. A bill has passed the house of 
representatives, which wounds liberty. They have at least taken away the 
article which prevents the sale of the French prizes in our ports. My heart is 
troubled by it. But I have seen with pleasure, that my reflections on this sub- 
ject, upon the dreadful crisis, which would result from an abuse of it, have made 
a deep impression upon the mind, I will even say, upon the heart of the Presi- 
dent, who is an honorable man. Let us unite, Mr. Fauchet, to draw our two 
nations closer together. Those who love liberty, are for fraternizing with the 
French Republic, the partizans of slavery prefer an alliance with England. 

"I, he said to me, (in speaking of the treaty of Jay*), that there is no ques- 
tion in his mission, but to demand a solemn reparation for the spoliations which 
our commerce has experienced on the part of England; and to give you a 
proof, that Mr. Jay cannot enter into a negotiation contrary to what we owe to 
France, I will give you the part of the instructions which concern it. 

"Although the following note, which I have, written in his own hand, with a 
promise to burn it, be little important, I annex it hereto. 

"'If the English ministry shall insinuate, that the whole or any part of these 
instructions should appear to be influenced by a supposed predilection in favor 
of France, you will arrest the subject as being foreign to the present question. 
It is what the English nation has no right to object to; because we are free in 
our sentiments and independent in our government.' 

" 'The following case is to be unchangeable. As there is no doubt, that the 
English ministry will endeavour to detach us from France, you will inform them 
of the firm determination of the government of the United States, not to deviate 
from our treaties, or our engagements with France.' " 

Extract from the Political Dispatch, No. 6, of Citizen Fauchet, Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary of the French Republic to the United States. 
" Scarce was the commotion known, when the Secretary of State came to my 
house. All his countenance was grief. He requested of me a private conversa- 

* The word affinn, appears to have been omitted in the certified copy. 



12 

tion. It is all over, lie said to me. A civil war is about to ravage our \inbappy 
country. Four men by their talents, their influence, and their energy may save 
it. But debtors of English merchants, they will be deprived of their liberty, if 
they take the smallest step. Could you lend them instantaneously funds, suffi- 
cient to shelter them from English persecution. This inquiry astonished me 
much. It was impossible for me to make a satisfactory answer. You know my 
want of power, and my defect of pecuniary means. I shall draw myself from 
the affair by some common place remarks, and by throwing myself on the pure 
and unalterable principles of the republic. • 

" I have never since heard of propositions of this nature." 

I the undersigned Peter Augustus Adet, Minister Plenipotentiary of the 
French Republic, near the United States of America, certify those to whom it 
belongs, tliat the dispatches. No. 3 and 6, mentioned in the dispatch No. 10, of 
the 10th of Brumaire, in the 3d year, addressed by Citizen Fauchet, my prede- 
cessor, to the commissary of exterior relations, are relative to a number of 
objects entirely foreign to Mr. Randolph, and that the extracts which I have 
delivered to him agreeably to his request, contain both the conversation and the 
overtures, of which Citizen Fauchet speaks in his dispatch. 

I certify moreover, that at the request of Mr. Randolph I have examined the 
dispatchjis of Citizen Fauchet to the French government ; and that whensoever 
Citizei^ Fauchet has had occasion to speak of Mr. Randolph, in respect to his 
morality, he always describes him as an honest and upright many 

Given at Philadelphia, under my hand and seal of the French legation, the 4th 
of Vendemaire, in the 3d year of the Republic, one and indivisible. 

P. A. ADET. 

To THE President of the United States, Mount Vernon. 

Philadelphia, Sept. 21, 1795. 

Sir, I returned yesterday from Germantown ; and this morning I shall proceed 
to the examination of the necessary papers. Finding it important to one branch 
of the subject, that I should ask a'small addition to the narrative in your letter 
of the 20th ultimo, I have to request, that I may be informed, as far as may 
be in your power, when Mr. Hammond put Mr. Fauchet's letter into the hands 
of Mr. Wolcott, and when an intimation was given, Sir, of that letter to jo\i. 
I wish to ascertain, without the necessity of resorting to circumstances, the 
earliest notice, which you received of the existence of such a letter. If you 
could add the probable time, when the British Secretary of State, Lord Gren- 
ville, obtained the letter, and when the British minister here procured it, I 
should be enabled to be more particular in my vindication. 

You inform me in your letter of the 20th ultimo, that you had never seen Mr. 
Fauchet's dispatch. No. 6, which is referred to in his letter ; and as you did 
not shew or send to me, with the other papers, the dispatch No. 8, I shall con- 
tinue to presume, that you have as yet not seen them. If you have, it will 
certainly be conceived proper, that I should be furnished with copies of them 
in order that I may know whether the papers in your hands, under the name of 
the dispatches No. 3 and 6, agree with what has been stated to me as their 
contents ; and that if there be a difference, I may take the best measures for 
establishing which is true. 

As nothing detains me in Philadelphia, but the completion of this business, 
which requires an extensive detail, and large transcription of papers, I must 



13 

hope that if there be any other document, which bears the least affinity to the 
main subject, I may have an opportunity through your intervention of meeting 
it before I take my departure to Virginia. 

.To Edmund Randolph, Esquire. 

Sir, I have lately received three letters from you : — two bearing date the 15th 
instant; — the other the 21st. — One of the former came to hand the 19th — the 
other the 21st — and the latter yesterday. 

Your signature as Secretary of State to the ratification of the treaty having 
beeu given on the 14th of August — and your resignation not taking place until 
the 19th, it became necessary, in order to be consistent, (the original being dis- 
patched) that the same countersign should appear to the copies : — otherwise this 
act would not have been required of you. 

It is not in my power to inform you at what time Mr. Hammond put the 
intercepted letter of Mr. Fauchet into the hands of Mr. Wolcott. — I had no 
intimation of the existence of such a letter until after my arrival in Philadel- 
phia, the 11th of August. When Lord Grenville first obtained that letter, and 
when the British minister here received it from him, are facts with which I am 
entirely unacquainted. 

I have never seen in whole or in part, Mr. Fauchet's dispatches numbered 
three and six ; — nor do I possess any documents, or knowledge of papers which 
haje affinity to the subject in question. 

No man would rejoice more than I should, to find that the suspicions which 
have resulted from the intercepted letter, were unequivocally and honorably 
removed. 

Go. WASHINGTON. 

Mount Vernon, 27ih of Sept. 1795. 

Philadelphia, October 2, 1795. 

SiK, I yesterday received from the President a letter dated on the 27th of Sep- 
tember 1795 ; containing, in answer to mine of the 21st, the following clauses. 
" It is not in my power to inform you, at what time Mr. Hammond put the inter- 
cepted letter of Mr. Fauchet into the hands of Mr. Wolcott. I had no intima- 
tion of the existence of such a letter until after my arrival in Philadelphia, the 
11th of August. When Lord Grenville first obtained that letter, and when the 
British minister here received it from him, are facts with which I am entirely 
unacquainted." 

"I have never seen in whole or in part Mr. Fauchet's dispatches, numbered 
three and six ; nor do I possess any document or knowledge of papers, which 
have affinity to the subject in question." 

As the British minister conveyed through your hands this business to the 
President, I hold myself authorized to inquire from you into some material facts, 
as they probably rest in your knowledge. These are, as to the time when Mr. 
Hammond put the letter into your hands ; as to Lord Grenville, Mr. Hammond, 
or yourself, having seen or been possessed of No. 3 and 6, or either of them ; as 
to there being any other paper in or out of cypher, connected with this afi"air, 
which may be brought up in my absence. If you have heard the time, about 
which Lord Grenville first obtained the letter, and when the British minister 
here received it from him, information of it will tend to elucidate some other 

points. 

I am. Sir, your humble servant, 

0. Wolcott, Esq. EDMUND RANDOLPH. 



u 

Philadelphia, October 2d, 1795. 

Sir, I have received your letter of this date, and I readily reply to your 
enquiries. 

Mr. Fauchet's letter to which you allude was delivered to me by Mr. Hammond 
on the 28th of July; and on the evening of the 11th of August, I presented it 
to the President. 

I have never seen or been possessed of Mr. Fauchet's letters, numbered 3 or 6, 
or either of them in or out of cypher, and I have no knowledge whether they 
or either of them, have been seen by Lord Grenville or Mr. Hammond. 

It is impossible for me to say whether any other document may be hereafter 
brought into view, as connected with the subject in question. Perhaps some- 
thing will depend upon the manner in which the discussion of this affair may be 
managed on your part, — as this mnj render an enquiry after other papers neces- 
sary. You may be assured, however, that nothing has been at any time con- 
cealed by me, to your prejudice. 

The letter which I received from Mr. Hammond, was, as I have been informed, 
taken from the Jean Bart, a French vessel. — I do not know the time, when it 
was received by Lord Grenville or by Mr. Hammond. It rests in my memory, 
however, that Mr. Hammond informed me, that the letter had been received 
by him, but a short time before it was presented to me, but of this fact I am not 
certain. I am, Sir, your humble servant, 

OLIV. WOLCOTT. 

Edmund Randolph, Esq. 

Philadelphia, October 8, 1795. 

Sir, You mistook me, if you supposed, that I meant to propound to you any 
question, the answer to which should prevent the appearance of any paper what- 
soever. I knew that this must depend upon the head of the executive ; and I 
put at defiance all papers, which now are, or hereafter may be seen. I only 
wished to learn, before my departure for Virginia, whether any thing more than 
the letter. No. 10, had been used in Mr. Hammond's machinations; so as to be 
able to prepare noiv to repel it. 

It is material, however, to understand what observations, or message, from 
Mr. Hammond or his government, accompanied the communication of the letter 
to you ; in order that they might be transmitted to the President. For if I am 
to judge from some hints, which have been given in the public prints, and from 
other data, I have reason to conclude, that Mr. Hammond was particularly in- 
structed upon the occasion. In short, candor entitles me to expect, that you will 
not hesitate to give me this information. 

I am, Sir, your humble servant, 

0. Wolcott, Esq. EDMUND RANDOLPH. 

Philadelphia, October 8, 1795. 

Sir, Notwithstanding I am convinced, that a knowledge of the minute circum- 
stances mentioned in your letter of this date, cannot be material to your defence, 
and though you have already been particularly informed of the manner in which 
Mr. Fauchet's letter was conveyed to the President ; yet I mean not to incur the 
imputation of wanting candor, by forbearing a reply to your inquiry. 

When the existence of the intercepted letter was first mentioned to me by Mr. 
Hammond, he did not intimate, or request, that its contents might be communi- 



15 

cated to the President: — it was my own suggestion, that the letter ought to be 
delivered to me for that purpose : — to this Mr. Hammond finally assented, upon 
the condition that a copy, certified by me, should remain in his hands. 

My motive for wishing to obtain the original letter will readily be discerned : — 
without possessing it, I could not safely venture to make any representation of 
its contents, and I felt no disposition to be the secret depository of facts affecting 
not only your character, but also the public interests. 

The nature of your inquiries on this subject leads me to assure you, that I am 

not conversant in the secrets of foreign ministers, and that I cannot say whether 

Mr. Hammond was, or was not, paticularly instructed to communicate Mr. Fau- 

chet's letter to the President ; — no such instruction was mentioned to me. 

I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 

OLIV. AVOLCOTT. 
Edmund Randolph, Esq, ^ , 

Philadelphia, October 8, 1795. 

Sir, Until Monday last I did not obtain from the office those of my own let- 
ters, which I deem proper to be introduced into my vindication. But I still want 
the inspection of a letter from you, dated July 22, 1795, and received by me. I 
applied personally at the ofiBce on Saturday last for the sight of your letters to 
me. The chief clerk went into the room, in which Mr. Pickering sits, to consult 
him, at my desire, upon my application. He afterwards carried to Mr. Pickering 
a brown paper; and on his return placed it before me. It contained many of 
your letters, and was endorsed to this purport, '■'The President's Letters.'' I 
presumed, that they were all there ; as no mention was made to me of any, that 
were missing. But not finding that of July 22, 1795, I asked for it; and the 
chief clerk replied, that Mr. Pickering had just taken it out ; and that upon his 
saying, that I might probably wish to see it, Mr. Pickering had observed, that, 
if I did, I would ask for it. I accordingly asked for it again ; but was answered, 
that it was necessary to consult Mr.Wolcott. Not hearing anything late on Mon- 
day fi-om the chief clerk, I reminded him by a note, and on Tuesday received 
thro' him the rancorous and insolent answer of Mr. Pickering, which amounts 
"to^a positive refusal,.. and of which due notice will hereafter be taken. I affirm 
to you, that I hold that letter to be important to one of the views which the 
question will bear. As I aim at accuracy in my statements, I am anxious to 
prevent a mistake in my recollection of that letter, and therefore request the 
inspection of it. 

Mr. Fauchet's letter and the circumstances which preceded and attended the 
delivery of it to me, embrace a variety of political matter, connected with many 
documents. The papers and reasonings in my general letter will comprehend 
among others the following: my letter to the Governor of Vermont, on the 28th 
of July, 1794 ; Mr. Bradford's letter from Fort Pitt, on the 17th of August, 1794 ; 
mine to the Secretary of the Treasury, on the 28th of August, 1794; a letter, 
which in the latter end of July, 1794, you directed me to write to a certain person ; 
two late letters to Col. Monroe; my letter to Mr. Jay on the 18th of August, 1794; 
my last circular letter to our ministers ; your letters to me on the 2M and 31st 
July, 1795, with the memorial therein referred to ; my letter to you on the 12th 
of July, 1795 ; the affidavit, which was laid before you of the British being sup- 
posed to be concerned in the insurrection ; the advice of another gentleman and 
myself to you, on the 25th of August 1794 ; extracts from Mr. Jay's and Mr. 
Monroe's instructions ; and my letter to you on the 15th August 1794. 



16 

You must be sensible, Sir, that I am inevitably driven into the discussion of 
many confidential and delicate points. I could -with safety immediately appeal 
to the people of the United States, who can be of no party. But I shall -wait 
for your answer to this letter, so far as it respects the paper desired, before I 
forward to you my general letter, which is delayed for no other cause. I shall 
also rely, that any supposed error in the general letter, in regard to facts, will 
be made known to me, and that you will consent to the whole of this affair, how- 
soever confidential and delicate, being exhibited to the world. 

At the same time, I prescribe to myself this condition, not to mingle anything 
which I do not sincerely conceive to belong to the subject. 

I have the honour to be, Sir, with due respect, 

Your most obedient servant, 

EDM: RANDOLPH. 
The President of the United States, Mount Vernon. 

Sir, Agreeably to the suggestion in your note to me, received yesterday, I 
laid the same before Colonel Pickering, whose answer I am authorized to send 
you, in the following words, viz : 

"The letter from the President, dated the 22d of July, 1795, of which Mr. 
Randolph has requested the inspection, does not appear to have any connection 
with the intercepted letter of Mr. Fauchet ; and, cannot possibly have referred 
to it; because the President was at that time ignorant even of its existence: and 
Mr. Randolph perfectly well knows that his resignation was occasioned solely by 
the evidence of his criminal conduct exhibited in Mr. Fauchet's letter. The in- 
spection of the President's letter then cannot be necessary for Mr. Randolph's 
exculpation." 

Department of State, October 6, 1795. 

GEO: TAYLOR, jun. Chief Clerk. 

Edmund Randolph, Esquire. 

To Edmund Randolph, Esquire. 

Sir, In several of the public gazettes I have read your note to the Editor of 
the Philadelphia Gazette, with an extract of a letter addressed to me of the 8th 
instant ; but it was not until yesterday, that the letter itself was received. 

It is not difficult, from the tenor of that letter, to perceive what your objects 
are ; but that you may have no cause to complain of the withholding any paper 
(however private and confidential) which you shall think necessary in a case of 
so serious a nature, I have directed that you should have the inspection of my 
letter of the 22d of July, agreeably to your request:— and you are at full liberty 
,to publish, without reserve, antj and every private and confidential letter I ever 
wrote you ; — nay more — every word I ever uttered to, or in your presence, from 
whence you can derive any advantage in your vindication. 

I grant this permission, inasmuch as the extract alluded to, manifestly tends 
to impress on the public mind an opinion, that something has passed between us 
which you should disclose with reluctance, from motives of delicacy which re- 
spect me. 

You know. Sir, even before the treaty was laid before the Senate, that I had 
difficulties with respect to the commercial part of it ; with which I professed to 
be the least acquainted; and that I had no means of acquiring information 
thereon without disclosing its contents : — not to do which until it was submitted 



17 

to the Senate, had been resolved on. — You know too, that it was my determina- 
tion previous to this submission, to ratify the treaty if it should be so advised 
and consented to by that body ; — and that the doubts which afterwards arose, 
and were communicated to Mr. Hammond, proceeded from more authentic infor- 
mation of the existence of whatsis commonly .caUedjyj^l^ovi,sio order of the 
British_gftV«i'iiaii!Jit. — And finally, you know the grounds on which my ultimate 
"decision was taken ; as the same were expressed to you, the other secretaries of 
departments, and tlie late attorney general, after a thorough investigation and 
consideration of the subject, in all the aspects in which it could be placed. 

As j'ou are no longer an officer of the government, and propose to submit your 
vindication to the public, it is not my desire, nor is it my intention to receive it 
otherwise than through the medium of the press. — Facts you cannot mistake — 
and if they are fairly and candidly stated, they jdll invite no comments. 

The extract of your letter to me, dated the 8th instant, being published in all 
the gazettes, I request that this letter may be inserted in the compilation you are 
now making ; — as well to shew may disposition to furnish you with every means 
I possess towards your vindication, as that I have no wish to conceal any part of 

my conduct from the public. That public will judge, when it comes to 

"see your vindication, how far, and how proper it has been for you to f)ublish pri- 
^vate and confidential communications — which, oftentimes have been written in a 
hurry, and sometimes without even copies being taken. — And it will, I hope, ap- 
preciate my motives, even if it should condemn my prudence, in allowing 3'ou 
the unlimited license herein contained. 

Philadelphia, 2] st of October, 1795. Go: WASHINGTON. 

Philadelphia, October 2Ath, 1795. 
SiB, I affirm to you, that the delay which has occurred in the arrival of my 
letter of the 8th instant to your hands, is not to be ascribed to me. It was sent 
to the post-office on Friday the 9th, but too late I believe for the mail of that 
day. If I am not misinformed, it reached Alexandria on AVedncsday the 14th; 
from whence it was brought back on Satui'day the 17th; you having passed 
through that town on your return. You came hither on Tuesday, tlie 20th, in 
the afternoon. 

__Whatsoevex.Jny"Objects may b© supposed to be, I have but one; which is, to 
^^.j^ji^ad J!Ui^£¥~^ jLflUt ualimited permission of i>ublicationJIsJherefqrejIas^<)u 
must be persuadedjg^Lven without .hazar_d. For you never could believe, that I 
inten"3e3rto exhibit to public view all and everi/ thing which was known to me. 
I have indeed the sensibility of an injured man; but I shall disclo.'^e even what 
I am compelled to disclose, under the opei-*tioii6f the necessity. which you your- 
self have createdx^JJiave beeiijhejnedii^^ victim of party spirit.^ J^ 

From the tenor of your letter of the 21st instant, I perceive'lljat you have 
controlled the opinions of Jlr. Pickering and Mr. Wolcott, by virtually admitting 
your proceedings on the treaty with Gieat Britain to be material in the case to 
be laid before our country. I must however contend, from a variety of written 
and other proofs in my possession, that what you in that letter denominate 
"doubts co7)imu)iicated to Mr. Hammond," will be found to have been considered 
by you from the 13th of July to the llth of August, as "your determination;" 
and that "■ the (/rounds on which 1/our ullimate decision toas professed to be taken" 
were little if at all different from those which h,id been often examined by you 
before my interview with Mr. Hammond. 

2 



18 , 

Mj'^ intention in troubling you with my letter of detail was merely to prevent 
a con.troversy about facts. But since you rest them upon my statement, I 
pledge myself to aim at accuracy. If I do not succeed, it will not be my fault 
that an error shall have crept into my narrative. But I shall be ready to correct 
it, and to renounce any inference which I may have deduced from it. 

Your letter, Sir, of yesterday, shall be published as you request. To the 
people I always meant to appeal. It will be in the form of a letter addressed to 
you, as many of the facts are best known to you; but I shall disclaim, as I 
have always disclaimed, an appeal to an inferior authority. The people will 
see, that I have not imitated some others, in treasuring up your letters or ob- 
servations, from any expectation of producing them at a future day; that I have 
never betrayed your confidence ; and that even where "your prudence maybe 
condemned," your "unlimited license," is no more, than a qualified eflFort to do 
justice. It would have been less equivocal, if it had not been accompanied 
with a kind of threat ; and the candor, which the letter seems to wear, would 
have been more seasonable, had it commenced with tliis injurious business. 
You hold. Sir, a number of my private letters, of which I kept no copy, and 
which I should be glad to inspect. But notwithstanding they would add weight 
the proofs, which I might produce, of all my opinions to you being founded 
on a regard to the rights of the people, and a love of order, I shall leave 
hem with^jourself as evidences of my fidelity. 

I have the honor to be Sir, with due respect, 

Your most obedient servant. 

The President of the United States. EDM : RANDOLPH. 

Finding from the foregoing letter of tlie President, and other sources 
of information, that we are likely to differ in (.Icgree upon his proceed- 
ings in regard to the treaty; I should have apprized him beforehand of 
the manner in which I have always understood them. But being led 
by one of the expressions in that letter, to suppose, that he is not 
desirous of entering into a previous discussion of facts ; I shall en- 
deavor explicitly to represent the entire truth ; after repeating, that it 
shall not be my fault, if it be not displayed. 

The treaty arrived on the evening of the 7th day of March, 1795; 
and was by the President's order rigidly concealed by me from every 
person upon earth, without a single exception, until I was permitted to 
divulge it. I challenge the whole world to prove the contrary. Scarcely 
a day passed, on which he saw me, that he did not enumerate many 
objections to it ; — objections, going not only to the commercial part, but 
also to the Canada article, which though seemingly reciprocal in words, 
would, as he thought, want reciprocity in practice ; to the omission of 
compensation for the negroes and property plundered; and to some 
other parts of less consequence. When the message which was to ac- 
company the treaty to the Senate, was about to be prepared, at the latter 
end of May, 1795, I observed to him, that it was necessary for him to 
make up his mind to ratify or not ; and he answered, that although the 
treaty was so exceptionable to him, yet he would not separate from the 



19 

Senate. At this time the order of the British king for seizing our pro- 
vision-vessels, bound to France had never been heard of by the Presi- 
dent; and even then he considered himself as at perfect liberty, to 
ratify or not. On the 24th of June 1795, the Senate advised the con- 
ditional ratification. He then expressed a wish, that the public opinion 
could be heard upon the subject; and notwithstanding the vote of the 
Senate as to secrecy, he authorized me on the 29th to promise to Mr. 
Brown the printer a copy of the tieaty for publication, with a view to 
draw forth the sentiments of the people. I accordingly gave him a 
paragraph for insertion on Monday the 29th, assuring the public, that 
the treaty would appear on the Wednesday following. Mr. Brown 
would have received the copy of the treaty immediately, if I had not 
delivered the only one, which I had, to Mr. Adet the French minister 
by the President's direction. But before Wednesday arrived, it came 
forth from another press. 

During the sitting of the Senate, a paragraph appeared in an English 
paper, mentioning the foregoing provision-order, as it is called. But 
there was nothing satisfactory concerning its existence or particulars. 
When they rose, the President was so far convinced, though not offi- 
cially, of its existence, that he admitted it, as a fact, upon which to 
reason in respect to the treaty. Then it was, that is, soon after the 
Senate rose, that he began to balance, whether to ratify or not. He 
acknowledges that he doubted ; and I am ready to own that shortly 
after the rising of the Senate, until the 13th of July 1795, he doubted 
only ; though with great strength. This it was, which induced me to 
hold with Mr. Hammond the conversation of the 29th of June 1795,* 



* Substance of a Conversatmi irith Mr. Hammond, June 29, 1795, 11 o'clock, A. M. 

I called upon him, and told him, that as he -wished formerly a sight of the 
treaty when I could not shew it to him, I would now very willingly impart it, if 
he wished to see it. He snid, that he supposed the essence of it was in Bache's 
paper of this morning. I replied, that the detail would give the subject more 
completely. He then said, that frankly speaking he had seen a copy, which* a 
member of the Senate had brought to him : that he was much pleased with the 
treaty himself. This last expression was put into two or three diflercnt shapes, 
to draw something from me. I observed only, that by the Constitution it now 
rested with the Tresident, and that he had entered into the consideration of 
the subject. He then read a letter from Lord Grenville to him, on the 18th of 
April 1795, expressing great solicitude at not having heard of the arrival of \/ 
the treaty at Philadelphia; and urging Mr. Hammond to give the earliest notice 
of its arrival, and of the steps taken. Our conversation closed with his saying, 
that if he wished to consult the treaty further, he would call upon me for a 
further inspection of it. 

'EDM: RANDOLPH. 

* Mr. King. 



20 

wliicli is recorded in the department of state, and was approved by tlie 
President. This it was, which induced me to write to Mr. Monroe on 
the 2d of July, 1795, under the President's eye and special correction, 
that " the President has not yet decided upon the final measure to be 
adopted by himself." This it was, which induced him to consult all 
the oiBcers of goTcrnnient upon some collateral points. This it was, 
which induced him to consult a certain individual upon the treaty at 
lars^e ; and to require me to give an opinion, which I delivered to him 
on tlie 12th of July 1795, in the evening. 

That opinion will be particularly stated in my general letter. But it 
is necessary to cjuote the following concluding passages : 

" I take the liberty then of suggesting, that a personal interview be imme- 
diately had bet-ween the Secretary of State and Mr. Hammond, and that the 
substance of the address to him be th - 

"I know, Sir, that you are acquainted vrith the late treaty between the United 
States and his Britannic Majesty ; and presume, that you have seen the vote of 
the Senate, advising a ratification of it upon condition. That treaty being still 
subject to the negative of the President is now before him, undetermined as to 
its fate. The candor, which has reigned throughout ovir proceedings, induces 
me, with the permission of the President, to explain to you, as the minister 
plenipotentiary of his Britannic Majesty near the United States, what is the 
course of his reflection upon this momentous transaction. If his Majesty could 
doubt the sincerity of the President's professions to maintain full harmony with 
the British nation, his doubt would vanish, when he is told. Sir, as I now tell 
you, that notwithstanding after the most mature consideration of the treaty, 
there are several parts by no means coincident with his wishes and expectations; 
yet he had determined to ratify it, in the manner advised by the Senate. He 
had determined to put his hand to it without again submitting it, cveu after the 
insertion of the new article, to the Senate. 

" But we are informed by the public gazettes, and by letters tolerably au- 
thentic, that vessels, even American vessels, laden with provisions for France, 
may be captured and dealt with, as carrying a kind of qualified contraband. If 
this be not true, j'ou can correct me. 

"Upon the supposition of its truth, the President cannot per.suade himself, 
that he ought to ratify, during the existence of the order. His reasons will be 
detailed in a proper representation through you (Mr. Hammond) to his Britannic 
Majesty. At the same time, that order being removed, he will ratify without 
delay, or farther scruple. Of this also his Britannic Majesty will be informed 
in the most explicit and unequivocjil tei-ms. 

"Now, Sir, the object of my interview Avith you nrises from my recollection 
of your having expressed to me a wish, that the ratifications should be ex- 
changed here ; in order that you might have some agency in closing the treaty. 
I am thus led to believe, that it may not be disagreeable to you, to undertake 
what I shall now have the honor of proposing to you. 

" Supposing that Mr. Jay's negotiation would absorb every controversy : that 
nothing would be left to be done for some time in the ordinary course of resi- 
dence : and that Mr. Pinckney would have returned to London before he was 
wanted there, he was dispatched, as our envoy, to Madrid. He did not com- 



21 

mence his journey until the 11th of May last. The secretary of the legation, 
Mr. Dcas, i.s the only person remainina in London, as the political agent of the 
United States. Being desirous of communicating every thing here, as far as we 
can, it has occun-ed to me to state in a memorial to you the situation of the 
business, and the foregoing declaration of the President's purpose to ratify. 
This, vie presume, will be immediately transmitted through you to the British 
ministry. The reply may be handed to Mr.Deas. You will also be furnished 
with a copy of the form in which the President means to ratify, when the 
order is rescinded. 

"The President had indeed once thought to order one of our European min 
isters on to London to supply for this purpose the place of Mr. Pinckney. But 
the most weighty objections render this impracticable ; and it may be also con- 
ceived that to send over a fresh diplomatic character at this stage of the busi- 
ness, would neither be very easy, nor very expeditious. 

"It is also contemplated by the President to propose that for the purpose of 
saving delay, the ratifications may be exchanged here. For although he does 
not doubt the constitutionality of the S ute's act, and is advised too, that the 
proposed article, if agreed to by his Britannic Majesty, need not be submitted 
to them before ratification, yet he entertains serious doubts whether he can 
himself ratify, without having the very article under his eye, after it shall have 
been assented to by his Britannic Majesty. The difference of time in the one 
form or the other will consist only in a voyage from London to Philadelphia. 
Provision will be made for the subscription in London of any papers, which 
form may require. 

"You will oblige me. Sir, by giving me youi" sentiments on this statement." 

In the morning of the loth of July 1795, the President instructed 
me in his room, to have the proposed interview with Mr. Hammond im- 
mediately, and to address him as I had suggested. I instantly returned 
to the office, and sent a note, requesting him to come thither. He came 
in half an hour; and I executed the President's instructions. Mr. 
Hammond asked me, if it would not be sufficient to remove the order 
out of the way; and after the ratification to renew it? I replied, per- 
haps with some warmth, that this would be a mere shift, as the prin- 
ciple was the important thing. He then asked me, if the President 
was irrevocably determined not to ratify ; if the provision-order was 
not removed ? I answered, that I was not instructed upon that point. 
He said, that he would convey my observations to Lord Grenville by a 
vessel which was to sail the next day ; and then left me. 

I immediately returned to the President's room, and acquainted him 
with the foregoing circumstances. He said, that I might have informed 
Mr. Hammond, that he never would ratify, if the provision-order was 
not removed out of the way. — He then directed me to prepare the me- 
morial of which I had spoken to Mr. Hammond, the form of ratifica- 
tion, and instructions for the person, who was to manage the business in 
London. 

The next day, being Tuesday the 11th of July 1795, I met with 



22 

Mr. Hammond at the President's public room ; when he took me on 
one side, and again enquired of me, if he was irrevocably determined 
not to ratify the treaty during the existence of the provision-order? 
added, that he had written to Lord Grenville what I had communicated 
to him the day before ; and asked me, when he might expect the memo- 
rial, which my communication promised to him. It is true, that with 
respect to the provision-order I might have told him, what the President 
had declared the day before. But as my conversation was designed 
only to shew, that the President had not let the subject sleep, and that 
he had taken his decision : and as the promised memorial would so soon 
repeat the same ideas, I saw no necessity for changing for the present 
the ground, upon which it had been placed by me. As to the memorial, 
I engaged, that he should have it before he sailed ; which was sufl&- 
ciently early for every purpose; since it was proposed by me in my 
letter abovementioned, on the 12th of July 1795, and approved by the 
President on the next day, not to send over a new minister; — but to use 
Mr. Hammond's agency. — I do not assert that I related to the President 
this last conversation with Mr. Hammond ; but I believe I did. 

The President left this city for Mount Vernon on Wednesday the 
15th of July 1795. As soon afterwards as an indisposition, and the 
nature of the subject, would permit, I prepared, as will be immediately 
stated, the memorial ; and at diiferent times seeing Mr. Hammond, and 
learning from him, when he expected to go, I constantly assured him, 
that it should be ready for him. Not having by me copies of all the 
private letters, which I wrote to the President, while he was in Vir- 
ginia, I may not perhaps observe the due order in mentioning the 
papers; but for the facts in other respects I vouch. 

The President wrote to me from Baltimore on the 18th of July 1795, 
desiring, that the address of the people of Boston should be taken into 
consideration by the secretaries and attorney-general. They were col- 
lected immediately upon the receipt of the letter; and did not at once 
agree, whether an answer should or should not be returned. But it was 
mentioned then by me, as I had mentioned to one or two at least of 
them before, and as I mentioned again the next day, that the President 
had taken a determination pursuant to the abovementioned communica- 
tion to Mr. Hammond. It was on this fact, that the answer to that 
address contained the following passage : — '^ Under this persuasion I ' 
have resolved on the manner of executing the duty before me." There 
was at this time no other ^^ resolution" of the President, to which the 
answer could refer ; and I never could have assented to that phrase, but 
from my knowledge, that the President had resolved, (though the final 
formal act was yet incomplete) not to ratify the treaty, until the provi- 
sion-order was arranged to his satisfaction. 



23 

Next in date is the memorial, the rough draught of which was sent 
to the President, containing the following passages : 

"But neither his Britannic Mnjesty nor the world will be surprised, when 
they shall be informed, that the disposition to ratify has been siispevded at least 
by a recent order, issued under the roj'al authority. Its genuineness, though 
not ascertained by official documents, is scarcely any where doubted. It is under- 
stood to import, that all ships, of whatever nation, laden with corn or other 
provisions for French ports, may be seized, and from this description not even 
neutral vessels are excepted. Against this doctrine the United States have 
often protested ; and more particularly in the memorial of their minister pleni- 
potentiary in London to the British secretary of state for foreign affairs, and in 
a letter from the department of state to the minister plenipotentiary of his 

Britannic majesty in Philadelphia, on the''^- It was not without 

regret, that the efforts were unsuccessful in conforming to the current of modern 
treaties the definition of contraband. But that the order of the 8th of June 
1793 was thus repeated upon the United States by the proposed treaty, was as 
abhorrent fi'om the rules of construction, as an acquiescence in that constriiction 
was remote from every opinion hitherto formed. It was believed, and is still 
believed, that the treaty justifies no such interpretation. The considerations, 
which indispose the United States to yield to it, are too obvious to require an 
enumeration ; and ffuin, instead of losing force, every day. To ratify then, in the 

face of this comment, would stamp upon* article a meaning which the 

United States disavow ; and contribute to the establishment of a principle, 
against which they revolt. Hence objections, which might have been overbal- 
anced by the hope of burying past differences, and of raising a barrier against 
fresh injui'ies array themselves again in view ; when the abandonment of them, 
notwithstanding, leaves behind this burthen upon American agriculture and 
commerce." 

"But as in the language of the Constitution of the United States, the Presi- 
dent is to make the treaty, no method is satisfactory to him, by which he can or 
ought to delegate to a subordinate agent the determination when the proposed 
treaty shall become the supreme law of the land. With this impression he 
cannot now adopt any style of ratification which shall preclude him from being 
personally satisfied, that the advice and consent of the Senate, which are the 
ground-work of his action on treaties, have been truly pursued. To demon- 
strate, however, that candor alone prevails throughout this transaction, there is 
annexed to this memorial the draught of a ratification which the President con- 
tem]}lales to vse, whensoever the occasion shall require ; that is, when he shall be 
satisfied as to the order for seizing provisions, and constitutional forms present no 
objection. 

" The chief obstacle, which is dependent for its removal on his Britannic 
Majesty, is the order above stated. The President is too much deprived of its 
particulars, to declare, what shall be his irrevocable determination ; but the 
sensibility, which it has excited in his mind, camiot be allayed without the most 
unequivocal slip>ulatio7i, to reduce to the only construction, in which he can acquiesce, 
the • — article of the treaty. 



This is a blank in the rough memorial. 



24 

Before the President had received this rough draught of a memorial, 
and the form of au eventual ratification, therein referred to, he wrote to 
me on the 22d of July, thus : 

" In my hurry, I did not signify the propriety of letting those gentlemen* 
know fully, my determination -with respect to the ratification of the treaty ; — 
and the train it was in; — but as this was necessary, in order to enable them to 
form their opinions on the subject submitted, I take it for granted that both 
were communicated to them, by you, as a matter of course. — The first, that is 
the conditional ratification, {if the late order, which we have heard of, respecting 
provision-vessels, is not in operation,) may, on all fit occasions, be spoken of as my 
deteimination, unless from any thing you have heard, or met with since I left 
the city, it should be thought more advisable to communicate farther with me 
on the subject ; — my opinion respecting the treaty, is the same now that it was, 
that is, not favorable to it, — but, that it is better to ratify it in the manner the 
Senate have advised, [and with the reservation already mentioned) than to suffer 
matters to remain as they are, — unsettled. — Little has been said to me on the 
subject of this treaty along the road I passed; and I have seen no one since 
from whom I could hear much concerning it: — but from indirect discoui'ses I 
find endeavors are not wanting to place it in all the odious points of view of 
which it is susceptible, and in some which it will not admit." 

The President's letter to me from Virginia, on the 29th of July, 
1795, forms a connecting branch only of the subject; but if it were 
omitted, the omission might be imputed to some improper motive. . 

It begins with announcing his determination to return almost imme- 
diately to Philadelphia ; and proceeds thus : 

*' I am excited to this resolution by the violent and extraordinary proceedings 
which have, and are about taking place, in the northern parts of the union, and 
may be expected in the southern ; because I think that the memorial — the rati- 
fication — and the instructions, which are framing, are of such vast magnitude, 
as not only to require great individual consideration; but a solemn conjunct 
revision. The latter could not happen, if you were to come to this place; nor 
would there be that source of information to be had, as is to be found at, and 
continually flowing to, the seat of government; — and besides, iu tl;e course of 
deliberating on these great matters, the examination of official papers may, more 
than probable, be found essential; and those could be referred to no where else." 

The next paragraph speaks of the inconvenience of an immediate 
return, but says, that " whilst he is in office, he shall never suffer 
private convenience to interfere with what he conceives to be his official 
duties." 

He goes on thus : 

"'I view the opposition, which the treaty is receiving fi-om the meetings in dif- 
ferent parts of the union in a very serious light. Not because there is more 

* The secretaries and attorney general. 



25 

TTcight in aivj of the objections, which arc made to it, than were foreseen at 
fji-,^t; — for there are none in some of them; and gross misrepresentations in 
others. — Nor as it respects myself personally ; for this shall have no influence 
on my conduct ; plainly perceiving, and I am accordingly preparing my mind for 
the obloquy, -which disappointment and malice are collecting to heap upon my 
character. But I am alarmed on account of the effect it may have on, and the 
advantage the French government may be disposed to make of, the spirit which 
is at work ; to cherish a belief in them, that the treaty is calculated to favor 
Great Britain at their expense. Whether they believe or disbelieve these tales, 
the effect it will have upon the nation will be nearly the same : for whilst they 
are at war with that power, or so long as the animosity between the two nations 
exist, it will, no matter at whose expense, be their policy, and it is feared, it 
will be their conduct, to prevent us from being on good terms with Great Britain, 
or from her deriving any advantages from our commerce, which they can pre- 
vent, however much wc may be benefited thereby ourselves. To what length 
this policy and interest may carry them is problematical ; but when they see the 
people of this country divided, and such a violent opposition given to the mea- 
sures of their own government, pretendedly in their favor, it may be extremely 
embarrassing, to say no more of it. 

" To sum the whole up in a few words. I have never, since I have been in 
the admii tratiou of the government, seen a crisis, which in my judgment has 
been so pre^^^ant of interesting events; nor one from which more is to be appre- 
hended ; whether viewed on one side or the other. From New-York there now 
is, and I am told will further be, a counter current ; but how formidable it may 
appear I know not ; — if the same does not take place at Boston and other towns, 
it will afford but too strong evidence that the opposition is in a manner uni- 
versal, or that those of different sentiments are supine or intimidated ; which 
would make the ratification a serious business indeed. But as it respects the 
French, even counter-resolutions, would, for the reasons I have already given, 
do little more than weaken, in a small degree, the effect those of the other com- 
plexion would have. 

The remainder of the letter relates to the answers to be returned to the differ- 
ent town and other meetings on the treaty ; with a postsci'ipt, desiring, that the 
confidential officers might "prei^are their minds on the sevei'al subjects therein 
mentioned against he should arrive." 

Ou the 31st of July, 1795, tlie President wrote to me the following 
letter from Mount Vernon. 

On Wednesday evening, I sent the packet, now under cover with this letter, 
to the post-office in Alexandria ; to be forwarded next morning at the usual 
hour (4 o'clock) by the Baltimore mail ; but behold ! when my letter bag was 
brought back from the oflSce, and emptied, I not only got those which were ad- 
dressed to me — among which yours of the 27th was one — but all those which I 
had sent up the evening before. 

I have to regret this blunder of the postmaster on account of the enclosures, 
some of which I wished to have got to your hands without delay, that they 
might have undergone the consideration, and acting upon, which was suggested 
in the letter which accompanied them. — On another account I am not sorry for 
the return of the packet; as I resolved thereupon, and reading some letters 
which I received at the same time, to await your acknowledgment of the receipt 



26 

of my letter of the 24th inst. before I ■would set out ; as I should, thereby, bo 
placed on a certainty -whether your journey hither, or mine to Philadelphia, 
would, under all circumstances, be deemed most eligible ; or whether the busi- 
ness could not be equally as well done without either, repeating now what I did 
in my letter of the 24th ; that I do not require more than a day's notice to 
repair to the seat of government ; — and that if you, and the confidential officers 
with you, are not clear in the measures which are best to be pursued on the 
several matters mentioned in my last, my own opinion is, and for the reasons 
there given, that difficult and intricate, or delicate questions, had better be set- 
tled there, where the streams of information are continually pouring in, than at 
any other place ; and that I would set out accordingly. 

To be wise and temperate, as well as firm, the crisis most eminently calls for; 
for there is too much reason to believe, from the pains which have been taken 
before — at — and since the advice of the Senate respecting the treaty, that the 
prejudices against it are more extensive than is generally imagined. — This, from 
men who are of no party, but well disposed to the government, I have lately 

learned is the case. How should it be otherwise ? when no stone has been 

left unturned that could impress the people's minds with the most errant false- 
hoods — that their rights have not only been neglected, but absolutely sold; — that 
there are no reciprocal advantages in the treaty ; — that the benefits are all on 
the side of Great Britain ; — and, what seems to have more weight then all the 
rest, and is accordingly pressed, is, that this treaty is made with a design to 
oppress the French, in open violation of our treaty with that nation, and con- 
trary, too, to every principle of gratitude and sound policy. 

In time, when passion shall have yielded to sober reason, the current may 
possibly turn ; but in the mean while, this government in relation to France and 
England, may be compared to a ship between the rocks of Scylla and Charybdis. 
If the treaty is ratified, the partisans of the French (or rather of war and con- 
fusion) will excite them to hostile measures; or at least to unfriendly senti- 
ments — if it is not, there is no foreseeing all the consequences which may follow, 
as it respects Great Britain. 

It is not to be inferred from hence, that I am, or shall be disposed to quit the 
ground I have taken; unless circumstances more imperious than have yet come 
to my knowledge, should compel it ;'\for there is but one straight course in these 
things, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily. i The reason I mention 
them is to shew, that a close investigation of the subject is more than ever 
necessary ; and that they are strong evidences of the necessity of the most cir- 
cumspect conduct in carrying the determination of government into efi"ect with 
prudence, as it respects our own country ; and with every exertion to produce a 
change for the better from G. Britain. 

The memorial seems well designed to answer the end proposed ; and by the 
time it is revised and new dressed, you will probably (either in the resolutions 
which are, or will be handed to me — or in the newspaper publications, which 
you promised to be attentive to) have seen all the objections against the treaty 
which have any real weight in them ; and which may be fit subjects for repre- 
sentation in the memorial, or for the instructions, or both. — But how much 
longer the presentation of the memorial can be delayed without exciting un- 
pleasant sensations here, or involving serious evils elsewhere, you, who are at the 
scene of information and action, can decide better than I. — In a matter, how- 
ever, so interesting and pregnant of consequences, there ought to be no precipi- 



27 

tation : but on the contrary, every step should be explored before it is taken, 
and every Avord weighed before it is uttered, or delivered in •writing. 

The form of the ratification requires more diplomatic experience, and legal 
knowledge than I possess, or have the means of acquiring at this place, and 
therefore I shall say nothing on this head. 

The identical memorial which the President says seems well designed 
to answer the end proposed, and from which the foregoing extract was 
made, and the very form of a ratification to which he refers, are now in 
my possession. » 

The reason why the President thought it probable, that I might be 
on my way to Mount Vernon was, that I had intimated it to him. 
Messrs. Wolcott, Pickering, and Biadford had urged me to go thither, 
in order to close the business, and put an end to eveiy expectation 
abroad that the President's purpose could now be changed. I had actu- 
ally engaged a carriage for the purpose; but was prevented by a great 
influx of business from the President and other quarters. 

Before the memorial returned to Philadelphia, Mr. Wolcott said some- 
thing to me about delay in concluding the business; observing, that it 
would give the French government an opportunity of professing to make 
very extensive overtures to the United States, and thus embarrass the 
treaty with Great Britain. When I read the memorial to Col. Picker- 
ing in his office, he said, "This, as the sailors say, is throwing the whole 
up in the wind." The memorial after it was rendered more correct in 
language, retained the former determination against ratifying, except in 
the mode now expressed, if the provision-order was abolished. Although 
it expressly declares, that it is only a more particular disclosure of my 
conversation on the 13th instant, yet no observation was ever made in 
my presence or to my belief, by the President, that I had exceeded his 
intention. I spoke of his determination on the 12th of August 1795, 
when we were in consultation on the treaty, and no objection was even 
hinted at. I also shewed to the President, on the morning of the 13th 
of August, 1795, the letters which had been written to Mr. Monroe, 
and to the other ministers, as follows. To Col. Monroe, July 14, 1795. 

"The treaty is not yet ratified by the President; nor will it be ratified, I be- 
lieve, until it returns from England, if then. But I do not mean this for a 
public commupication or for any public body or men. I am engaged in a work, 
which, when finished, and approved by the President, will enable me to speak 
precisely to you. The British order for seizing provisions is a weighty obstacle 
to a ratification. I do not suppose that such an attempt to starve France will be 
countenanced." 

To all our foreign ministers, July 21, 1795. 

""When I inform you that the Presiidcnt has not yet ratified the treaty, his 



character will convince you, that nothing -will deter him from doing Avhat he 
thinks right ; and that the final question lies open from causes, unconnected -with 
any considerations but the interest and duties of the United States. He is at 
present in Virgiaia, and will doubtless very soon take his conclusive step. If I 
were permitted to conjecture, what that would be; I should suspect, that at any 
rate he would not sign it, until it should return from England, with the addition 
of the suspending article ; and probably not even then, if a late British order for 
the capture of provisions going to France, should have been issued as we sup- 
pose, and increase the objections which have been lavished upon it." 

The purpose of this statement is to shew that the President, (not- 
withstanding he was at liberty to ratify, if he pleased, even after the 
declaration to Mr. Hammond, who would readily admit a recantation to 
that effect, and altho' I studiously kept him at liberty by my acts and 
writings, went to Mount Vernon on the 15th of July, 1795, determined 
to adhere to the ground, which he had taken on the 13th, in my oral 
representation to Mr. Hammond, and came back on the 11th of Augu&t 
with the same determination, as far as I could discover. For, in addi- 
tion to the preceding circumstances, on the evening of the 11th of Au- 
gust, I observed to him, in the presence of Messrs. Pi.^kering and 
Bradford, that the sooner the memorial was revised by the gentlemen 
jointly, who were prepared with their opinions, the better; and he re- 
plied, that he supposed every thing of this sort had been settled. But 
I told him, that they were not, as Col. Pickering was for an immediate 
ratification; to which he said, ''I told Mr. Randolph that I thought the 
postponement of ratification was a ruinous step;" or words tantamount. 

I might confirm this, if necessary, by a very influential letter in the 
President's hands, dated the 10th or 14th of July, approved by him, 
and differing from my opinion, on the definitive step only in this respect; 
that the writer would have suspended the treaty, not by refusing to 
ratify, but by refusing to excliange ratifications, until an attempt was 
made to abolish the provision-order; and, if it miscarried afterwards, 
until our minister should receive further instructions. 

That a change in the purpose of the President had taken place, will 
also appear by the change of expression between the memorial, which 
the President approved at Mount Vernon, and that delivered finally to 
Mr. Hammond. In the former, the Secretary of State proposes to com- 
municate to the British minister more formally, more precisely, and 
more at large, the suggestions made in the conversation of the 13th of 
July, 1795. In the latter, he says, that in conformity with his assu- 
rance on the 13th of July, 1795, *'he now communicates, by memorial, 
the determination which the President of the United States has thought 
proper to ado'pt." The draught which I made in consequence of the 
change in the President's opinion, proves the constancy of my idea. It 



29 

mentions the clctcrmination, winch the President lias, iqwn farther re- 
flection, thought proper to adopt. 

Translation of Mr. Fauchet^s Political DispcUcli, JSfo. 10. 
LEGATION OF PHILADELPHIA. ) 

FOREIGN RELATIONS. V No. 10. 

Private Correspondence of the Minister on Politics. J 

Philadelphia, the 10 fh Brumaire, Zrdycar of 

the French Republic, one and indivisible. 

(October Slst, 17U4.) 

Joseph Fauchet, Minister Plenipotentiary of the French Republic, near the 

United States, 

to the commissioner of foreign relations, 
Citizen, 

1. The measures -which prudence prescribes to me to talce, Tvith respect 
to my colleagues, have still presided in the digesting of the dispatches signed by 
.them, which treat of the insurrection of the western countries, and of the re- 
pressive means adopted by the government. I have allowed them to be confined 
to the giving of a faithful, but naked recital of events ; the reflections therein 
contained scarcely exceed the conclusions easily deducible from the character 
assumed by the public prints. I have reserved myself to give you as far as I 
am able a key to the facts detailed in our reports. When it comes in question 
to explain, either by conjectures or by certain data, the secret A'iews of a foreign 
government, it would be imprudent to run the risk of indiscretions, and to give 
oneself up to men whose knoMii partiality for that government, and similitude of 
passions and interests with its chiefs, might lead to confidences, the issue of 
which are incalculable. Besides^ the precious confessions of Mr. Randolph 
alone throw a satisfactory light upon every thing that comes to pass. These I 
have not yet communicated to my colleagues. The motives already mentioned 
lead to this reserve, and still less permit me to open myself to them at the pre- 
sent moment. I shall then endeavor. Citizen, to give you a clue to all the meas- 
ures, of which the common dispatches give you an account, and to discover the 
true causes of the explosion, Avhich it is obstinately resolved to repress with 
great means, although the state of things has no longer anything alarming. 

2. To confine the present crisis to the simple question of the excise is to reduce 
it far below its true scale; it is indubitably connected with a general explosion 
for some time prepared in the public mind, but which this local and precipitate 
eruption will cause to miscarry, or at least check for a long time; — in order to 
see the real cause, in order to calculate the effect, and the consequences, we 
must ascend to the origin of the parties existing in the State, and retrace their 
progress. 

3. The present system of government has created malcontents. This is the 
lot of all new things. My predecessors have given information in detail upon 
the parts of the system which have particularly awakened clamors and produced 
enemies to the whole of it. The primitive divisions of opinion as to the politi- 
cal form of the State, and the limits of the sovereignty ot the whole over each 
State individually sovereign, had created the federalists and the ami-federalists. 
From a whimsical conti-ast between the name and the real opinir.n of the parties, 
a contrast hitherto little tinderstood in Europe, the former aimed, and still aim, 



30 

with all their power, to annihilate federalism, whilst the latter have always 
wished to preserve it. This contrast was created hj the Consolidators or the 
Constitutionalists,* who, being first in giving the denominations (a matter so im- 
portant in a revolution,) took for themselves that which was the most popular, 
although in reality it contradicted their ideas, and gave to their rivals one which 
would draw on them the attention of the people, notwithstanding they really 
wished to preserve a system whose prejudices should cherish at least the memory 
and the name. 

4. Moreover, these first divisions, of the nature of those to be destroyed by 
time, in proportion as the nation should have advanced in the experiment of a 
form of government which rendered it flourishing, might now have completely 
disappeared, if the system of finances which had its birth in the cradle of the 
Constitution, had not renewed their vigor under various forms. The mode of 
organizing the national credit, the consolidating and funding of the public debt, 
the introduction in the political economy of the usage of States, which prolong 
their existence or ward off their fall only by expedients, imperceptibly created a 
financiering class who threaten to become the aristocratical order of tho State. 
Several citizens, and among others those who had aided in establishing inde- 
pendence with their purses or their arms, conceived themselves aggrieved by 
those fiscal engagements; Hence an opposition which declares itself between 
the farming or agricultural interest, and that of the fiscal; federalism and anti- 
federalism, which are founded on those new denominations, in proportion as the 
treasury usurps a preponderance in the government and legislation: Hence in 
fine, the State, divided into partizans and enemies of the treasurer and of his 
theories. In this new classification of parties, the nature of things gave popu- 
larity to the lattei-, an innate instinct, if I may use the expression, caused the 
ears of the people to revolt at the names alone of treasurer and stockjobber : but 
the opposite party, in consequence of its ability, obstinately persisted in leaving 
to its adversaries the suspicious name of anli-federaUsts, whilst in reality they 
were friends of the Constitution, and enemies only of the excrescences which 
financiering theories threatened to attach to it. 

5. It is useless to stoji longer to prove that the monarchical system was inter- 
woven with those novelties of finances, and that the friends of the latter favored 
the attempts which were made in order to bring the Constitution to the former 
by insensible gradations. The wi-itings of influential men of this party prove 
it; their real opinions too avow it, and the journals of the Senate are the deposi- 
tory of the first attempts. 

6 Let us, therefore, free ovirselves from the intermediate spaces in which the 
progress of the system is marked, since they can add nothing to the proof of its 
existence — Let las pass by its sympathy with our regenerating movements, while 
running in monarchical paths — Let us arrive at the situaiiou in which our Re- 
publican revolution has placed things and parties. 

7. The anti-federalists disembarrass themselves of an insignificant denomina- 
tion, and lake thit of patriots and of republicans. Their adversaries become 
aristocrats, notwithstanding their elTorts to preserve the advautageoiis illusion of 
ancient names; opinions clash, and press each other; the aristocratic attempts, 
which formerly had appeared so insignificant, are recollected: The treasurer, 
who is looked upon as their first source, is attacked; his operations and plans 

* Constitiians. 



31 

are denounced to the public opinion; nay, in the sessions of 1792 and 1703, a 
solemn inquiry into his administration was obtained. This first victory -was to 
produce another, and it was hoped that, faulty or innocent, the treasurer would 
retire, no less by necessity in the one case, than from self-love in ;he other. He, 
emboldened by the triumph which he obtained in the useless inquiry of his ene- 
mies, of which both objects proved equally abortive, seduced besides by the 
momentary reverse of republicanism in Europe, removes the mask and announces 
the approaching triumph of his principles. 

8. In the mean time the popular secietiesare formed; political ideas concenter 
themselves, the patriotic party unite and more closely connect themselves; they 
gain a formidable majority in the legislature; the abasement of commerce, the 
slavery of navigation, and the audacity of England strengthen it. A concert of 
declarations and censures against the government arises ; at which the latter is 
even itself astonished. 

9. Such was the situation ot things towards the close of the last and at the 
beginning of the present year. Let us pass over the discontents which were 
most generally expressed in these critical moments. They have been sent to 
you at diflerent perio.s, and in detail. In every quarter are arraigned the im- 
becility of the governmen': towards Great Biitain, the defenceless state of the 
country against possible invasions, the coldness towards the French Republic: 
the system of finance is attacked, which threatens eternizing the debt under 
pretext of making it the guarantee of public happiness; the complication of that 
system which withholds from general inspection all its operations, — the alarming 
power of the influence it procures to a man whose principles are regarded as 
dangerous, — the preponderance which that man acquires from day to day in 
public measures, and in a word the immoral and impolitic modes of taxation, 
which he at first presents as expedients, and afterwards raises to permanency. 

10. In touching this last point wc attain the principal complaint of the west- 
ern people, and the ostensible motive of their movements. Republicans by 
principle, independent by character and situation, they could not but accede with 
enthusiasm to the crimirations which we have sketched. But the excise above 
all affects them. Their lands are fertile, watered with the finest rivers in 
the world; but the abundant fruits of their labor run the risk of perishing for 
the want of means of exchanging them, as those more happy cultivators do for 
objects which desire indicates to all men who have known only the enjoyments 
which Europe proctires them. They therefore convert the excess of their pro- 
duce into liquors imperfectly fabricated, which badly supply the place of those 
they might procure hy exchange. The excise is created and strikes at this con- 
soling transformation; their complaints are answered by the only pretext that 
they are otherwise inaccessible to every species of impost. But why, in contempt 
of treaties, are they left to bear the yoke of the feeble Spaniard, as to the Mis- 
sissippi, for upwards of twelve years? Since when has an agricultural people 
submitted to the unjust capricious law of a people explorers of the precious 
metals? Might we not suppose that Madrid and Philadelphia mutually assisted 
in prolonging the slavery of the river; that the projjrictors of a barren coast are 
afraid lest the Mississippi, once opened, and its numerous branches brought into 
activity, their fields might become deserts, and in a word that commerce dreads 
having rivals in those interior parts as soon as their inhabitants shall cease to 
be subjects? This last supposition is but too well founded; an influential mem- 



32 

ber of the Senate, Mr. Izard, one day in conversation imdisguisedly announced 
it to me. 

11. I sliall be more brief in my observations on tlie murmurs excited by the 
system for the sale of lands. It is conceived to be unjust that these Fast and 
fertile regions should be sold by provinces to capitalists, who thus enrich them- 
selves, and retail, with immense profits, to the husbandmen, possessions which 
they have never seen. If there were not a latent design to arrest the rapid set- 
tlement of those lands, and to prolong their infant state, why not open in the 
west land offices, where every body, without distinction, should be admitted to 
purchase by a small or large quantity ? "Why reserve to sell or distribute to 
favorites, to a cL.n of flatterers, of courtiers, that which belongs to the State, 
and which should be sold to the greatest possible profit of all its members? 

12. Such therefore were the parts of the public gi'ievance, upon which the 
western people most insisted. Now, as the common dispatches inform you, these 
complaints were systematizing by the conversations of influential men who re- 
tired into those wild countries, and who from principle, or by a series of partic- 
ular heart-burnings, animated discontents already too near to efiervesccnce. At 
last the local explosion is cfi"ected. The western peojDle calculated on being sup- 
ported by some distinguished characters in the east, and even imagined that they 
had in the bosom of the government some abettors, who might share in their 
grievances or their principles. 

13. From what I have detailed above, those men might indeed be supposed 
numerous. The sessions of 179-^ and 1794 had given importance to the republi- 
can party, and solidity to its accusations. The propositions of Mr. Madison, or 
his project for a navigation act, of which Mr. Jefi'erson was originally the author, 
sapped the British interest, now an integral part of the financiering system. 
Mr. Taylor, a republican member of the Senate, published towards the end of 
the session, three pamphlets, in which this last is explored to its origin, and de- 
veloped in its progress and consequences with force and method. In the last he 
asserts that the decrepid state of aflairs resulting from that system, could not 
but presage, under a rising government, either a revolution or a civil war. 

14. The first was preparing: the government, which had foreseen it, repro- 
duced, iinder various forms, the demand of a disposable* force which might 
put it in a respectable state of defence. Defeated in this measure, who can aver 
that it may not have hastened the local eruption, in order to make an advanta- 
geous diversion, and to lay the more general storm which it saw rising ? Am I 
not authorized in forming this conjectiire from the conversation which the Secre- 
tary of State had with me and Le Blanc, alone, an account of which you have 
in my dispatch, No.. 3? But how may we expect that this new plan will be exe- 
cuted? By exasperating and severe measures, authorized by a law which was 
not solicited till the close of the session. This law gave to the one already ex- 
isting for collecting the excise a coercive force which hitherto it had not possessed, 
and a demand of which was not before ventured to be made.f B}- means of this 
new law all the refractory citizens to tlic old one were caused to be pursued with 
a sudden rigor; a great number of writs were issued; doubtless the natural con- 
sequences from a conduct so decisive and so harsh were expected; and before these 



* Uisponible. 

fTliis law was mentioned in tlie comnieal upon the laws of ilie last session inclosed in No. 9 
of corresponclence of llje miuister. 



were manifested the means of repression had been prepared ; this was undoubt- 
edly what Mr. Randolph meant in telling me that under pretext of giving energy 
to the government it ivas intended to introduce absolute power, and to mislead the Pre- 
sident in paths which would conduct him to xinpopxilarity . 

15. Whether the explosion has been provoked by the government, or owes its 
birth to accident, it is certain that a commotion of some hundi'cds of men, who 
have not since been found in arms, and the very pacific union of the counties in 
Braddock's field, a union which has not been revived, were not symptom's which 
could justify the raising of so great a force as 15,000 men. Besides the princi- 
ples, uttered in the declarations hitherto made public, rather announced ardent 
minds to be calmed than anarchists to be subdued. But in order to obtain some- 
thing on the public opinion prepossessed against the demands contemplated to be 
made, it was necessary to magnify the danger, to disfigure the views of those 
people, to attribute to them the design of uniting themselves with England, to 
alarm the citizens for the fate of the Constitution, whilst in reality the revolu- 
tion threatened only the ministers. This step succeeded; an army is raised; 
this military part of the suppression is doubtless Mr. Hamilton's, the pacific part 
and the sending of commissioners are due to the influence of Mr. Randolph over 
the mind of the President, whom I delight always to believe, and whom I do 
believe, truly virtuous, and the friend of his fellow-citizens and principles. 

16. In the mean time, although there was a certainty of having an army, yet 
it was necessary to assure themselves of co-operators among the men whose 
patriotic reputation might influence their party, and whose luke-warmness or 
want of energy in the existing conjunctures might compromit the success of the 
plans. Of all the governors, whose duty it was to appear at the head of the 
requisitions, the Governor of Pennsylvania alone enjoyed the name of Republi- 
can; his opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury and of his system was known 
to be unfavorable. The Secretary of this State possessed great influence in the 
Popular Society of Philadelphia, which in its turn influenced those of other 
States; of course he merited attention. It appears therefore that these men 
with others unknown to me, all having without doubt Randolph at their head, 
were balancing to decide on their party. Two or three days before the procla- 
mation was published, and of course before the Cabinet had resolved on its 
measures, Mr Randolph came to see me with an air of great eagerness, and 
made to me the overtures of which I have given you an account in my No. 6. 
Thus with some thousands of dollars the Republic could have decided on civil 
war or on peace! Thus the consciences of the pretended patriots of America 
have already their prices! * It is very true that the certainty of these conclu- 
sions, painful to be drawn, will forever exist in our archives! What will be the 
old age of this government, if it is thus early decrepid! Such, Citizen, is the 
evident consequence of the system of finances conceived by Mr. Hamilton. ' He 
Las made of a whole nation, a stock-jobbing, speculating, selfish people. \ Riches 
alone here fix consideration; and as no one likes to be despised, they are univer- 
sally sought after. Nevertheless this depravity has not yet embraced the mass 
of the people; the effects of this pernicious system have as yet but slightly 
touched them. Still there are patriots, 'f whom I delight to entertain an idea 
worthy of that imposing title. Consult Monroe, he is of this number; he had 
apprised me of the men whom the current of events had dragged along as bodies 

* Tariff. 



34 

devoid of weight. His friend Madison is also an honest man. Jefferson, on 
whom the parties cast their eyes to succeed the President, had foreseen these 
crises. He prudently retired in order to avoid making a figure against his incli- 
nation in scenes, the secret of which will soon or late be brought to light. 

17. As soon as it was decided that the French Republic purchased no men to 
do their duty, there were to be seen individuals, about whose conduct the govern- 
ment could at least form uneasy conjectures, giving themselves up with a scan- 
dalous ostentation to its views, and even seconding its declarations. The Popular 
Societies soon emitted resolutions stamped with the same spii'it, and who, although 
they may have been advised by love of order, might nevertheless have omitted 
or uttered them with less solemnity. Then were seen coming from the very men 
whom we had been accustomed to regard as having little friendship for the system 
of the treasurer, harangues without end, in order to give a new direction to the 
public mind. The militia, however, manifest some repugnance, particularly in 
Pennsylvania, for the service to which they were called. Several officers resign ; at 
last by excursions or harangues, incomplete requisitions are obtained, and scat- 
tered volunteer corps from different parts make up the deficiency. How much 
more interesting, than the changeable men whom I have painted above, were 
those plain citizens who answered the solicitations which were made to them to 
join the volunteers — "If we are required we will march; because we do not wish 
not to have a government, but to arm ourselves as volunteers would be in ap- 
pearance subscribing implicitly to the excise system wliich we reprobate." 

18. What I have said above, authorizes then our resting on the opinion become 
incontestible, that in the crisis which has burst, and in the means employed for 
restoring order, the true question was the destruction or the triumph of the 
treasurer's plans. This being once established, let us pass over the facts related 
in the common dispatches, and see how the government or the treasurer will take 
from the very stroke which threatened his system the safe opportunity of humb- 
ling the adverse party, and of silencing their enemies whether open or concealed. 
The army marched; the President made known that he was going to command 
it; he sat out for Carlisle; Hamilton, as 1 have understood, requested to follow 
him; the President dared not to refuse him. It does not require much penetra- 
tion to divine the object of this journey: In the President it was wise, it might 
also be his duty. But in Mr. Hamilton it was the consequence of the profound 
policy which directs all his steps; a measure dictated by a perfect knowledge of 
the human heart. Was it not interesting for him, for his party, tottering under 
the weight of events without and accusations within, to proclaim an intimacy 
more perfect than ever with the President, whose very name .is a sufficient shield 
against the most formidable attacks ? Now what more evident mark could the 
President give of his intimacy than by suffering Mr. Hamilton, whose name even 
is understood in the west as that of a public enemy, to go and place himself at 
the head of the army which went, if I may use the expression, to cause his sys- 
tem to triumph against the opposition of the people? The presence of Mr. 
Hamilton with the army must attach it more than ever to his party; we see what 
ideas these circumstances give birth to on both sides, all however to the advan- 
tage of the secretary. 

19. Three weeks had they encamped in the west without a single armed man 
appearing. However the President, or those who wished to make' the most of 
this new manoeuvre, made it public that he was going to command in person. 
The session of Congress being very near, it was wished to try whether there 



S5 

could not be obtained from the presses, which were supposed to have changed, a 
silence whence to conclude the possibility of infringing the Constitution in its 
most essential part: in that which fixes the relation of the President with the 
legislature. But the patriotic papers laid hold of this artful attempt: I am cer- 
tain that the office of Secretary of State, which alone remained at Philadelpliia, 
(for while the minister of finance was with the army, the minister of war was 
on a tour to the Province of Maine, 400 miles from Philadelphia,) maintained 
the controversy in favor of the opinion which it was desired to establish. A 
comparison between the President and the English monarch was introduced, who 
far removed from Westminster, yet strictly fulfills his duty of sanctioning; it was 
much insisted on, that the Constitution declares that the President commands the 
armed force: this similitude was treated with contempt; the consequence of the 
power of commanding in person, drawn from the right to command in chief (or 
direct) the force of the State, was ridiculed and reduced to an absurdity, by 
supposing a fleet at sea and an army on land. The result of this controversy 
was, that some days after it was announced that the President would come to 
open the approaching session. 

20. During his stay at Bedford, the President doubtless concerted the plan of 
the campaign with Mr. Lee, to whom he left the command in chief. The letter 
by which he delegates the command to him, is that of a virtuous man, at least 
as to the major part of the sentiments which it contains; he afterwards set out 
for Philadelphia, where he has just arrived, and Mr. Hamilton remains with the 
army. 

21. This last circumstance unveils all the plan of the Secretary; he presides 
over the military operations in order to acquire in the sight of his enemies a 
formidable and imposing consideration. He and Mr. Lee the commander in chief 
agree perfectly, in pi'inciples. The governors of Jersey and Maryland harmonize 
entirelj' with them; the governor of Pennsylvania, of whom it never would have 
been suspected, lived intimately and publicly with Hamilton. Such a union of 
persons would be matter sufficient to produce resistance in the western counties, 
even admitting they had not thought of making any. 

22. The soldiers themselves are astonished at the scandalous gaiety with which 
those who possess the secret, proclaim their approaching triumph. It is asked, 
of what use are 15,000 men in this country, in which provisions are scarce, and 
where are to be seized only some turbulent men at their plough. Those who 
conducted the expedition know this ; the matter is to create a great expense; 
when the sums shall come to be assessed, no one will be willing to pay, and 
should each pay his assessment, it will be done in cursing the insurgent princi- 
ples of the patriots. 

23. It is impossible to make a more able manoeuvre for the opening of Congress. 
The passions, the generous indignation, which had agitated their minds in the 
last session, were about being renewed with still more vigor; there was nothing 
to announce of brilliant successes which they had promised. The hostilities of 
Great Britain on the continent so long disguised, and now become evident, a 
commerce always harassed, ridiculous negotiations lingering at London, waiting 
until new conjunctures should authorize new insults ; such was the picture they 
wei'e likely to have to oflFer the representatives of the people. But this crisis, 
and the great movements made to prevent its consequences, change the state of 
things. With what advantage do they denounce an atrocious attack upon the 
Constitution, and appreciate the activity used to repress it; the aristocratical 



36 

party -will soon have understood the secret ; all the misfortunes will be attributed 
to patriots ; the party of the latter is about being deserted by all the weak 
men, and this complete session will have been gained. 

24. Who knows what will be the limits of this triumph ? Perhaps advantage 
will be taken by it to obtain some laws for strengthening the government, and 
still more precipitating the propensity, already visible, that it has towards 
aristocracy. 

25. Such are, Citizen, the data which I possess concerning these events, and 
the consequences I draw from them; I wish I may be deceived in my calcula- 
tions, and the good disposition of the people; their attachment to principles 
leads me to expect it. I have perhaps herein fallen into the repetition of reflec- 
tions and facts contained in other dispatches, but I wished to present together 
some views which I have reason to ascribe to the ruling party, and some able 
manoeuvres invented to support themselves. Without particii^ating in the passions 
of the parties, I observe them; and I owe to my country an exact and strict ac- 
coimt of the situation of things. I shall make it my duty to keep you regularly 
informed of every change that may take place; above all I shall apply myself to 
penetrate the disposition of the legislature ; that will not a little assist in forming 
the final idea which we ought to have of these movements, and what we should 
really fear or hope from them. 

Health and fraternity. 
Signed, JH. FAUCHET. 



To the President of the United States. 

Sir, Never until the 19th of August, 1795, could I have believed, 
tliat in addressing you, without the restraint of an official relation, I 
should use any other language, than that of a friend. From an early 
period of my life, I was taught to esteem you : — as I advanced fn years, 
I was habituated to revere you : — you strengthened my prepossessions 
by marks of attention ; and if by some others, you have been insid- 
iously pampered with more lavish assurances of an affectionate attach- 
ment; from me you have experienced a sincere anxiety, to continue 
your reputation upon its ancient basis, the hearts of the people. 

But the season is come, Sir, when, if my obligations to you have not 
been balanced by laborious and confidential services ; the whole account 
is settled without ingratitude on my part. 

Still however those very obligations, the very reputation whicb you 
have acquired, will cause it to be asked, why you should be suspected of 
acting towards me, in any other manner, than deliberately, justly, and 
even kindly ? Painful as the history of facts is, it must be told. Be- 
fore you saw Mr. Fauchet's letter, the British partisans had been indus- 
trious in disseminating the most poisonous falsehoods ; and while I was 
absent at Ilhode-Island they seized the advantage of uttering uncontra- 
dicted slanders; boasting and insisting, that in a controversy between 
us, I must be sacrificed. The hope, therefore, which remains to me, is, 
that truth when developed may face with success the influence of your 



37 

character. For I hesitate not to pronounce, that you prejudged the 
question ; that you ought to have withstood the impulse, which hurried 
you into a prejudication ; and that he, who feels a due abhorrence of 
party-manoeuvres, will form a conclusion honoi-able to myself. 
That you prejudged my case, is proclaimed by your actions. — 
On the evening of the 11th of August, 1795, Mr. Fauchet's letter 
was presented to you by Mr. Wolcott. At all hours of the day I was 
ready to obey your summons. On every day, except Sunday j and per- 
haps twice a day I had a private interview with you. Twice I spoke to 
you of the warmth, which Messrs. Wolcott and Pickering had discov- 
ered on the 12th, in the discussion of the treaty in your room, and 
which undoubtedly, as it now appears, sprang from a knowledge of that 
letter. On the 14th you veiled the meditated stroke by a visit at my 
house. On the 15th, you invited me, in the most cordial way, to dine 
with a party of chosen friends, and placed me at the foot of your table. 
On the 18th the same air of hospitality was assumed. But the system 
of concealment, which had been practised under the united auspices of 
the British minister, and the American Secretary of the Treasury, was 
not thought unworthy of your adoption ; — Mr. Wolcott had been privy 
to the letter at least from the 28th of July, and the President of the 
United States from the 11th of August j and yet he had buried it at 
the bottom of his soul, until the 19 th of August, when the final catas- 
trophe seemed to be secure. Why was all this stratagem observed to- 
wards him, of whose fidelity you had never entertained a doubt ? 
Although your advisers might have pledged themselves, for the pursuit 
of a particular plan, to others; although even New-York may have been 
the birth-place of the scheme; old habits of deference to the opinion of 
any man ought to have been discarded, when put in competition with 
justice. From this cause, from another, which will be hereafter noticed, 
or from a temper, which under the exterior of cool and slow delibera- 
tion, rapidly catches a prejudice, and with difficulty abandons it; you 
determined, that your first impressions could not be effaced : You held 
frequent consultations with Messrs. Pickering and Wolcott; you and 
they became sentinels on all my words, all my gestures : And it being 
known, that I should renew in the debate upon the treaty my undissem- 
bled protestation against a rupture with France, it was too admirable an 
opportunity for culling a few atoms of testimony of French influence 
over me, to be lost by an untimely discovery of the letter. Was this 
open ? Was this generous ? Was it characteristic of an inquiry after 
truth ; or was it not rather characteristic of a labor to defend before the 
world a judgment already fixed '( It was in perfect unison with the 
events of the 19th of August; when your tribunal of inquiry had been 
sitting more than an hour before I was admitted ; when I was received 



38 

in the forms of a state-criminal j when those, who had been plotting 
against me, were invited to interrogate ; when in military style I was 
directed to retire, until you should converse with them. 

It was also in perfect unison with your own and Mr. Wolcott's indif- 
ference in obtaining the necessary lights. The principal parts of Mr. 
Fauchet's letter, so far as they affect me, depend for their explanation 
and illustration upon his dispatches No. 3 and 6. Without these the 
facts from which he draws his inferences, could not be divined by you ; 
and your suspicions had for their foundation only his assertion of '■^pre- 
cious confessions" from me; his " ro«_;>c/i«-e," contained in the state- 
ment No. o, and his observations upon an unknown overture in No. 6. 
You avow in your letter of Sept. 27, 1795, that " you have never seen 
in the whole or in part, Mr. Fauchet's dispatches No. 3 and 6;" and 
" that you do not possess any documents or knowledge of papers, which 
have affinity to the subject in question." In like manner, Mr. Wolcott, 
whose agency with the British minister on this occasion has been so 
conspicuous, disclaims, on the 2d of October 1795, any " knowledge, 
whether they or either of them (No. 3 and 6) have been seen by Lord 
Grenville or Mr. Hammond." Thus not the smallest exertion was 
made to procure these documents; which would be naturally sought 
for by those, whose judgment was not pre-occupied. 

Noj- was this all. You undertook to decide for me, that mi/ inquiries 
from Mr. Hammond for No. 3 and 6, must be unavailing; because you 
withheld from me Mr. Fauchet's letter, until Mr. Hammond had sailed 
for Europe. This is no speculative complaint. For I have been as- 
sured, that a duplicate of No. 6, accompanied the letter No. 10, from 
Philadelphia ; but whether it was in or out of cypher cannot be ascer- 
tained farther, than that it was probably out of cypher, as No. 10 was 
in the common character. 

Did Lord Cxrenville's high probity insure the sending of all papers, 
belonging to the subject ? Did Mr. Hammond's peculiar candor render 
it impossible for him to suppress them ? Or was Mr. Fauchet's accu- 
racy so unquestionable, as to supersede the necessity of even asking for 
No. 3 and 6 ? 

Of Lord Grenville I shall not speak, except in his political character 
towards the United States, and his conduct in this transaction. The 
arrogant observations which he made to Mr. Pinckney against the 
friends of France in our country; the displeasure expressed by the 
British cabinet on the letters, written to the National Convention, with 
your approbation ; the dexterous perseverance, with which he has inter- 
woven in the treaty every thing, adverse to France, which it was sup- 
posed, could be tolerated ; and Mr. Fauchet's letter, being nine months 
old, when it was first exhibited to you ; — these incidents ought to have 



39 

reminded you, that the No. 3 and 6 deserved one short inquiry. They 
ought to have reminded you of the possibility, that instead of an anxiety 
in his lordship to maintain our government free from corruption, he 
might have been tempted, by the prospect of more effectually prepos- 
sessing you against the friends of France, to keep back those references. 
For he transmitted the letter No. 10 to Mr. Hammond, " to he used to 
the best advantage for his Majesty's service." If any scope of thought 
had been indulged, it must have struck you, that, as Mr. Jay and Mr. 
Pinckney did not appear to have been acquainted with the letter, it was 
reserved by the British government for a critical moment, and that it 
ought to be attempted to supply the mutilations by a demand of the 
references. 

Who was Mr. Hammond ? In speaking of him too I shall confine 
myself to his political demeanor. Into his breast had been transfused 
the largest portions of his nation's hatred to all persons in the United 
States, who were conceived to be attached to France. He denied to 
him,self no opportunity of throwing an odium on them. You never will 
forget. Sir, his long, insolent, and contumelious neglect of the ordinary 
civilities, due from him, as a foreign minister, to yourself, as chief 
magistrate. You were no stranger to his personal irritation against mc, 
for my friendship to France, for my remonstrances against Governor 
Simcoe's invasions ; for my defence of the government of Ehode-Island 
in reclaiming the citizens of the United States, impressed and detained 
on board of the British ship Nautilus ) and for the order, which in its 
operation ought to have prevented British ships of war from using our 
ports, as stations, from whence to prey upon the French. You often 
uttered your indignation at his many complaints, without a shadow of 
proof; and the lengths, to which he might be transported by the vio- 
lence of his passion, were not easy to be defined. Was this the man, to 
be implicitly trusted for candor towards myself, or any friends to France? 

Mr. Fauchet's letter bears upon the face of it reasons to question his 
accuracy. You have often questioned it, from the examination of his 
different dispatches to the government ; as the answers to them prove. 

To these evidences of your judgment being made up, without the 
references No. 3 and 6, I must add, that the immediate ratification 
of the treaty with Great Britain can be traced to no other source, than 
a surrender of yourself to the first impressions from the letter, which 
instantaneously governed you with respect to that instrument and my- 
self. My narrative on .this head has been explicit. I have asserted, 
and I again assert, that from the 13th of July to the 11th of August it 
was your delermination, to ratify; if the provision-order was arranged 
upon principles to your satisfaction ; and 7iot to ratify during its exist- 
ence : and that whensoever in your letters you speak of ratification, you 



40 

mean a future ratification upon condition. How your determination ia 
to be reduced to mere doubts, I pretend not to solve. 

The events, subsequent to the 11th of August, demonstrate how sud- 
denly you yielded to the letter. 

It had indeed been circulated at the coffee-house in the morning of 
that day, either by Mr. Hammond or his associates, that I was at the 
bottom of the town-meetings; and that there was a conspiracy, of 
which I was a member, to destroy the popularity of the President, and 
to thrust Mr. Jefferson into his chair. Among the intemperate argu- 
ments of Mr. Pickering to urge you into an immediate ratification, one 
was, that the struggle to defeat the treaty was the act of a " detestable 
and nefarious conspiracy." I resorted to my former arguments : that 
the treaty did not appear to me to warrant the provision-order : that if 
it did, it was inadmissible, because you had sanctioned a letter on the 
7th of September, 1793, acknowledging a permission in Great Britain 
to exercise such a power, to be a cause of war to France : that we should 
be inconsistent in our discussions with the French minister; because, 
when he remonstrated upon the extension of contraband by the treaty, 
it was answered, that we did not alter the law of nations ; but now we 
should desert what was contended to be the law of nations, in two 
letters to Mr. Hammond : that you would run the hazard of a war with 
France, by combining to starve her; and that her discontents were the 
only possible chance remaining to the British partizans for throwing us 
into the arms of Great Britain, by creating a seeming necessity of an 
alliance with the latter power. By my advice the United States would 
also have been masters of all contingencies at the end of the campaign. 
To my unutterable astonishment, I soon discovered, that you were re- 
ceding from your. " determination." You had been reflecting upon 
your course from the 26th of June to the 13th of July ; on the latter 
diiy you decided on it; a communication was made to the British min- 
ister in conformity with it ; letters were addressed to our own ministers 
in conformity to it ; they were inspected by you, before you rescinded 
your purpose; no imperious circumstances had arisen, except the strength 
of the popular voice, which would, accordiog to ordinary calculation, 
corroborate, not reverse, your former resolution ; you assigned no new 
reasons for the new measures; and you disregarded the answer to Boston, 
although it had committed you upon a specicd fact, namely, a deter- 
mination not to ratify during the existence of the provision-order. While 
I was searching for the cause of this singular revolution; and could not 
but remember, that aiiother ojn'nion, which was always weighty with 
you, had advised you not to exchange ratifications, until the provision- 
order should be abolished, or the American minister should receive 
farther instructions, if it were not abolished ; — after duty had dictated 



41 

to me an acquiescence in your varied sentiments, and I had prepared 
a memorial to Mr. Hammond, adapted to them ; — after you had signed 
the ratification on the 18th of August; Mr. Fauchet's letter brought 
forth a solution of the whole afiFair. There it was, that Mr. Pickering's 
"detestable and nefarious conspiracy" was supposed to be found : there 
it was that the dark design of replacing you by another President was 
supposed to be found ; there it was, that a corrupt attachment to France 
was supposed to be found ; thence it was, that Messrs. Pickering and 
AVolcott wrought upon you with insinuations of perfidy in me ; thence 
it was, that you were persuaded to lay aside all fear of a check from the 
friends of France; — thence it was, that the French cause and myself 
were instantaneously abandoned ; thence it was, that you proceeded in a 
style, which according to the reports of your confidential officers, was 
intended to impose on me the alternative of resignation or removal ; and 
it was from the knowledge of this intention, that Mr. Pickering made 
the chief clerk in the department of state the organ of a declaration to 
that effect — What else is all this, but prejudication ? 

I now enter upon the proof of my second position; that you ought to 
have withstood the impulse, which hurried you into a prejudication ; 
and this too, not from the rules of general justice alone, but from the 
peculiar circumstances of the case. 

The groundwork of all the calumny is a letter from a foreign minister 
to his government. It could not, Sir, escape you, that to refute it, I 
must, in a great degree, if not altogether, undertake to prove a negative. 
A member of the administration has gone so far, as to say, on this 
ground, that I cannot exculpate myself. Well mignt he triumph in 
this envenomed hope : for my chief resource was in an explanation from 
tlie writer himself. But where was the writer, when the letter was 
thought ripe for my crimination ? Probably on the high seas, or in 
France, or at any rate three hundred miles distant. Mr. Fauchet had 
long quitted Philadelphia; and the frigate which was to convey him to 
France, waited for nothing, but favorable weather, for passing the British 
ship Africa. Who was the writer ? A minister, recalled by the ene- 
mies of his friends and patrons ; personally disgusted with the secretary 
of state; and conscious of the danger of inconsistency. It was no 
great favor therefore to expect the suspension of your opinion, especially 
as, if 1 had miscarried in seeing Mr. Fauchet, I must for months have 
been inevitably deprived of his testimony. 

The time when the letter crept from the pocket of the British min- 
ister, was exposed to very obvious animadversions. You had been 
informed of his eagerness to crown his mission by the consummation of 
the treaty, of which he was an affectionate admirer, and Lord Grenville 
had been the anxious parent. Mr. Wolcott, profuse in his responsibility 



42 

for others, would seem, in his letter of October the 8th, to excuse Mr. 
Hammond from requesting or intimating, that the contents of the letter 
might be communicated to the President, and fathers it as his own sug- 
gestion, that it ought to be delivered to him for that purpose. The 
world cannot be deceived by this. Mr. Hammond understood the good- 
ness of the soil, in which he was sowing the seed ; and duly appreciated 
the fruit, which was to spring from it. He was convinced, and you 
must have been convinced, that he counted upon your being made 
a partner of the secret ; and would have soon explained bimself in that 
way, if Mr. Wolcott's patriotic ardor, to hurl a feeble dart at the repub- 
licans of the United States, had not anticipated him by a particulai' 
application. Witb this impression, it ought to have occurred, that Mr. 
Hammond might have. chosen for the communication, the period when 
you refused the ratification from a circumstance, principally relative to 
the French. I assert that he preferred this period; because he was 
instructed to use the letter for the benefit of his Majesty's service. He 
had long ago heard, that you generally suffered yourself to be governed 
by a majority of your council; and that a concert between Messrs. Wol- 
cott and Pickering, who caught with joy the seeming authority to de- 
nounce the foes of the treaty, as a " detestable and nefarious conspiracy," 
and were perhaps furnished with some peculiar topics for your ear, would 
turn your mind to the revocation of your original intention. Considera- 
tions like these should have recommended real moderation, in deciding 
upon a mutilated instrument ; and the inducement to moderation was 
heightened by a natural suspicion, that the suppression of the letter 
from me, until Mr. Hammond was on shipboard, arose from his reluc- 
tance to be interrogated concerning its references. 

The facts speak too strongly to be resisted, and I must repeat them 
bere. When was the letter delivered to Mr. Wolcott? On the 28th of 
July. — When was the letter communicated to you? On the 11th of 
August. — When did Mr. Hammond leave Philadelphia for New-York ? 
On the 15th of August. — When did he actually sail from thence? On 
the 17th in the morning. — When was the letter exhibited to me ? On 
the 19th at noon. 

But let me allow. Sir, for a moment, that Mr. Fauchet's letter, instead 
of being stripped of its references, had vouched for the payment of mo- 
ney to me, as the reward of secret services to France. You ought even 
then to have paused, before you stooped to the concealment of it for 
eight days, and to the injurious treatment which I received from you on 
the 19tb of August. You invited me, in a strain of the warmest friend- 
sbip, to the office of attorney-general. Unsolicited, you offered me the 
department of state. My friends were aware, that machinations w.aild 
be carried on against me ; but I relied on my superiority to the shafts 



43 

of party malice, and on youi- support. My conduct towards you ; your 
knowledije of nie ; was a guarantee, that a corrupt collusion with a for- 
eign minister was impossible. Have I not always, with firmness and 
without dissimulation contradicted any even of your opinions, in which 
I did not coincide ? Did I not actually incur your displeasure by object- 
ing to the appointment of Col. Hamilton, as envoy to London, for rea- 
sons which I afterwards communicated to himself; to the appointment 
of Mr. Jay, because it was a bad precedent, that a chief-justice should 
be taught to look up for executice honors, flowing from the head of it, 
while he retained his judicial seat; and to the granting of commercial 
powers to Mr. Jay ? Did I advocate the appointment of any of my own 
friends ? Have I not adhered to the principles which I marked out to 
myself in my letter of the 19th of April 1794*? Was there no occa- 



PhiladelpMa, April 19, 1794. 

* Dear Sir, I called upon Mr. Monroe, and obtained bis promise to explain 
the manner of his procuring the extract, as it was in truth, without my privity, 
and against the rule of the office. But I find, that Mr. King was employed in 
the exaniiuation of the same books, at the same time; so that in this instance, 
the want of equal measure cannot upon any ground be suspected. 

Your iriendly remarks add to the many obligations, which I owe to you; and 
also present an opportunity, which I cannot forego, of unbosoming myself to you 
without reserve. 

1 have often said, — I still say — that nothing shall sway me as nothing has yet 
swayed me, to depart from a long-settled determination, never to attach myself 
to party I believe, that I might appeal to you, Six* — nay, I should not distrust 
an appe-'.l to any man with whom I have acted, that this determination has been 
conscientiously pursued. What has been the consequence? I know it — that my 
opinions, not containing any systematic adherence to party, but arising solely 
from my views of right, fall sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the other; 
and the momentary satisfaction, produced by an occasional coincidence of senti- 
ment, does not prevent each class fi-om occasionally charging me with instability. 
But I had much i-ather submit to this tax, than to the more painful sensations, 
which a contrary conduct would excite. 

I am no less apprised, that my connections by friendship, by marriage, by 
counti-y, and by similitude of opinions, where republicanism and gooil order meet, 
with the leaders of the southern politics, give birth to suspicions. But if I were 
here to euum^n-ate the great subjects, which, since the organization of the govern- 
ment, have agitated the public mind, it would appear, that even those connections 
have not operated upon me, beyond the weight of their reason. They are ines- 
timable to me ; and while I retain a consciousness of my ability to resist an 
undue influence, I cannot deny the satisfaction, which I feel in maintaining them. 
And yet, Sir, there is one fact, of which I beg you to be persuaded ; that with 
them I have no communication on matters of government which I would not have 
with others: — I converse freely, but without imparting official intelligence, which 
is not of an absolutely public nature : — I commit myself by no opinions — and 
above all I shall never attempt to use those persons, as engines of any measure, 



44 

eion, on whicli I rendered myself deeply obnoxious to those, whom you 
did not wish to provoke, merely by urging you to manifest your inde- 
pendence of all party, by submitting to the insolence of none ? There 
was such an occasion. Did I ever attempt to ingratiate myself with 
others by soliciting offices for them ? Disdaining to consult your preju- 
dices, I have yet cherished your character, by advising you to measures, 
which consulted stable government, the temper of the people, and the 
neutrality which you had prescribed. I forbore to remove the suspicions 
which were uttered of my having relinquished republican ground, when 
I became Secretary of State; although I need only to have mentioned 
the constant tenor of my advice to you. I forbore this too, under cir- 
cumstances not a little trying ; for I soon perceived, that your popularity 



which is a favorite with me. While I was writing this last sentence, a question 
springs up "what view can I have ?" The answer is, peace, liberty, and good 
government. 

When I contemplate the other party, I see among them men, whom I respect, 
and who, if their duplicity be not extreme, respect me. I see others, who respect 
no man, but in proportion to his subserviency to their wishes. Some of these are 
well informed, that I have opposed, in several instances, things which they had 
at heart. I have no reason to suspect Col. Hamilton of any unkind disposition 

towards me — he has none on my part with relation to himself Even to your 

confidential ear have I never disclosed an idea concerning him, which he might 
not hear ; and which in many instances, and particularly a late one, he has not 
heard from my own mouth. But I have reason to suspect others — if you pause 
upon a measure which they are anxious for, I am supposed to embarrass you with 
considerations of a popular kind. 

But I have said enough — perhaps too much. Suffer me, however, to add one 
word more, of the sincerity of which I ask no other judge than yourself. Your 
character is an object of real affection to me : there is no judgment, no disinter- 
estedness, no prudence, in which I ever had equal confidence. I have often in- 
deed expressed sentiments contrary to yours. This was my duty ; because they 
were my sentiments. But, Sir, they were never tinctured by any other motive, 
than to present to your reflection the misconstructions, which wicked men might 
make of your views, and to hold out to you a truth of infinite importance to the 
United States, that no danger can attend us, as long as the persuasion continues, 
that you are not, and cannot become the head of a party. The people venerate 
you, because they are convinced, that you choose to repose yourself on them. 
Let me intreat you only to look round the continent, and decide, if there be any 
other man but yourself, who is bottomed upon the people, independent of pai-ty? 
There is surely none ; and the inference, which I submit to your candor, is, that 
the measures adopted by you, should be tried solely by your own pure and unbi- 
assed mind. 

I have the honor to be. Dear Sir, 

With the most affectionate attachment and respect. 

Your most obedient servant, 

EDM: RANDOLPH. 
The President. 



45 

had been the fund, upon the credit of which all your acts, when unpala- 
table in themselves, had been made current, and that this fund was not 
eternal. In short, Sir, you hnew enough of me, to demand that you 
should hesitate, before you shut your mind against inquiry. 

Had Mr. Fauchet's letter been shewn to me in private, rather than in 
the presence of two men, personally irritated against me, well prepared 
for cither function of counsellors or witnesses ; and thus apparently ele- 
vated, while in your cabinet, by an ideal victory, the laurels of which, 
be they transitory or perpetual, belong to you alone : — had you observed 
towards me, the friend of the French cause, and one of those named in 
the letter of the French minister, the same delicate conduct, which you 
would have observed towards some of the enemies of the French cause 
if they had been named in an intercepted letter of the British minis- 
ter : — had you been yourself — such as you were — when party dare not 
approach you : — I should have thanked you, and immediately gone in 
quest of the proofs which I now possess. Every official act was liable 
to your correction or prohibition; and if satisfied, you would have avoided 
your invincible repugnance to retract. But that letter has been greedily 
clutched for three objects; to insure the ratification of the treaty; to 
drive me from office ; and to endeavor to destroy the republicans in the 
United States. The first is accomplished : the second is also accomplished, 
and was unnecessarily precipitated, since you were acquainted with my 
determination to resign at the beginning of the ensuing year : the third 
can never be accomplished, until the people shall forget their friends, and 
forget truth. 

Resignation then was the path of honor. What ! hold an office, to 
be administered under the hourly control of him, who was thoroughly 
disposed to present humiliation to me in all its shapes ; and would have 
prostrated the guidance of the department of State to a Secretary of the 
Treasury, and a Secretary of War, who, but a few weeks before, were 
thought by him, as but successors in form to the deliberative talents of 
their predecessors. Truly can I affirm, that not a single hour was ever 
brightened by the pleasures of the post ; and I should have shaken off 
its irksome weight, at the close of the last year, had I obeyed my interest 
or inclination, instead of my attachment to you. If indeed the affair 
had been less in the reach of inquiry from my resignation, I would not 
have resigned. But this is not the case. I defy an inquiry, howsoever 
backed by party, by management, or by influence. My countrymen will 
therefore be persuaded, that my resignation was dictated, not by a dread 
of examination, but by the just pride of liberating myself from in- 
dignities. 

It was incumbent on me to touch the two preliminary points; in 
order that I might enter into the analysis of Mr. Fauchet's letter, 



46 

without the prejudice, which your character might impose on my cause, 
from a supposition that you had formed your judgment upon a calm and 
dispassionate investigation. — I renounce every other view. For I scorn 
to rest my defence upon the imbecility of others, rather than its own 
strength : — I scorn to take refuge in the sensibility of the public mind, 
rather than the purity of my own conduct. ■ Let the defects therefore of 
others operate no further in my behalf, than to remove the impressions 
which malicious industry has circulated through the United States under 
the mantle of your name. I ask only that the letter may now be con- 
sidered, as if it was, for the first time, introduced to public notice ; and 
that the essential references, No. 3 and 6, to which you have been hith- 
erto a stranger, may be coupled with that letter. 

When I am called upon to prove a negative, it ought to be enough for 
me to deny the charges, until they are supported by better evidence, than 
the mere assertion of any foreign minister. Be it, however, otherwise; — 
I will prove it, as far as it is within the reach of proof. 

The first paragraph of Mr. Fauchefs Letter. * 

"1. The measures which prudence prescribes to me to take, with respect to 
my colleagues, have still presided in the digesting of the dispatches signed by 
them, which treat of the insurrection of the western countries, and of the re- 
pressiye means adopted by the government. I have allowed them to be confined 
to the giving of a faithful, but naked recital of events ; the reflections therein 
contained scarcely exceed the conclusions easily deducible from the character 
assumed by the public prints. I have reserved myself to give you as far as I am 
able a key to the facts detailed in our reports. When it comes in question to 
explain, either by conjectures or by certain data, the secret views of a foreign 
government, it would be imprudent to run the risk of indiscretions, and to give 
oneself up to men whose known partiality for that government, and similitude of 
passions and interests with its chiefs, might lead to confidences, the issue of 
which are incalculable. Besides, the precious confessions of Mr. Randolph 
alone throw a satisfactory light upon evei'y thing that comes to pass. These I 
have not yet communicated to my colleagues. The motives already mentioned 
lead to this reserve, and still less permit me to open myself to them at the present 
moment. I shall then endeavour, Citizen, to give you a clue to all the measures, 
of which the common dispatches give you an account, and to discover the true 
causes of the explosion, which it is obstinately resolved to repress with great 
means, although the state of things has no longer any thing alarming." 

The observations upon the ^'precious confessions of Mr. Randolph^' 
involves the judicious management of the office. It implies no deliberate 
impropriety ; and cannot be particularly answered, until particular in- 

*The translation has been made by a gentleman, at my request, and delivered to the Printer 
after I left Pliiladclphia. Having the French original only before me, I may not alwjiys translate 
alike in words ; though the sense will doubtless be the same. 



47 

stances are cited, unless it be by resorting to Mr. Faucliet's own expla- 
nation. 

"On my arrival," sm/s his certificate, "on tliis continent, the President gave me 
the most positive assurance, that he was the friend of the French cause. Mr. 
Randolph often repeated to me the same assurance. It was impossible for me 
not to give faith to it, (in spite of some public events relative to France which 
gave me some inquietude) especially when the Secretary of State constantly took 
pains to convince mo of the sensations of good-will of his government for my l\e- 
public. It was dovxbtless to contirm rae in this opinion that he communicated to 
me, without authority, as I supposed, the part of Mr. Jay's instructions which 
forbade him to do any thing which should derogate from the engagements of the 
United States with France. My error, which was dear to me, was prolonged 
only by the continual efforts of Mr. Randolph to calm my fears both upon the 
treaty with England and upon the effect which it might produce on France. He was 
therefore far from confiding to me any act, any intention of government by virtue 
of any concert with me, or in consequence of any emolument received by him, or 
for the expectation or hope of any recompense promised, or with any other view 
than to maintain a good harmony between Fi'ance and the United States. As to 
the communications which he has made to me at different times, they were only 
of opinions, the greater part, if not the whole of which, I have heard cii'culated 
as opinions. I also recollect that on one occasion, at least, which turned upon 
public measures, he observed to me, that he could not enter into details upon 
some of them, because by doing so he should violate the duties of his office. 
From whence I have concluded and believe that he never communicated to me 
what his duty would reprove. I will observe here, that none of his conversations 
with me concluded without his giving me the idea that the President was a man 
of integrity, and a sincere friend to France. This explains in part what I meant 
by the terms, 'his precious confessions.' I proceed to other details relative 
thereto. I could allude only to explanations on his part upon matters which had 
caused to me some inquietude : And I have never insinuated, nor could I insin- 
uate in that letter, that I suspected on his part even the most distant corruption. 
These explanations had equally for their object my different conversations upon 
western affairs, as may be seen in the sequel of this declaration. 

"When I speak in this same paragraph in these words, 'Besides, the precious 
confessions of Mr. Randolph alone cast upon all which happens a satisfactory 
light,' I have still in view only the explanations of which I have spoken above ; 
and I must confess that very often I have taken for confessions what he might 
have to communicate to me by virtue of a secret authority. And many things 
which in the first instant I had considered as confessions were the subject of 
public conversations. I will say more. I will say, that I have had more than 
suspicions that certain confidences which have been made to me, were only to 
sound my private opinions, and the intentions of the French Republic." 

It is obvious that Mr. Fauchet labors in his letter to magnify to his 
government his penetration and skill in negociation. Nay, he may pro- 
bably have thought, that he had acquired such an ascendancy over me, 
as to afford access to the secrets of the executive. But an example has 
not been, nor can be quoted, in which, while he was indulging the belief 
of confessions, I was not strictly within the line of duty. 



48 

Turn your eyes, Sir, to the situation of the American Secretary of 
State. The French minister was unquestionably sent upon an errand 
similar to that of every other foreign minister; to watch the movements 
of our government, the spirit of the people, and the events which arise. 
The Secretary of State is, on his part, to procure for the President from 
the minister every possible information of the affairs of France. It 
would be ridiculous and unavailing to pursue this object, but by the es- 
tablishment of a confidence in the minister's breast. The surest mode 
of accomplishing it, was to inculcate the good-will of our government 
towards his country's cause ; to repel his occasional complaints; to act 
candidly with him; and to be as frank in communications as our neu- 
trality and the real secrets of the government would permit. Hence it 
has been a fixed usage for the Secretaries of State to seek conversations, 
or to continue them, with the French and indeed every other diplomatic 
resident. You have been long privy to this usage; and frequently in- 
terrogated me, as to Mr. Fauchet's sentiments on a variety of matters. 
Were I to summon to my remembrance every thing, which I have im- 
parted to you from him; the catalogue of what I might denominate his 
"precious confessions," would not perhaps be small. But very probably 
T might convert into confessions his authorized communications: — I 
might be deceived, as he was with respect to myself, when he accepted 
as a mark of my personal benevolence to his Republic, that portion of 
Mr. Jay's instructions, which was communicated to him, in substance, 
by your direction. That I never did for a reward, or emolument, re- 
ceived, promised, expected, or hoped for, communicate to him any act or 
intention whatsoever of the government of the United States; that I 
never did intentionally communicate to him, without your approbation, 
what was concealed from others; that, to the best of my belief, I never 
did inadvertently communicate to him any secret of the government; 
that I never had a conversation with him, which I conceived to be of 
importance, and did not relate to you, unless I were prevented by your 
absence, or some accident: and that I never uttered a syllable to him, 
which violated the duties of office ; I assert, and to the assertion I am 
ready to superadd the most solemn sanction. 

It will be necessary in this, and most of the other paragraphs of Mr. 
Fauchet's letter, to recollect his declaration, that, where he has not ex- 
pressly quoted me, he does not speak from my authority. I shall not 
therefore in this place deny, as I might with truth, that I was the author 
of the remark at the close of the first paragraph; and for the same rea- 
son I shall not on future occasions deny, howsoever I might with truth, 
things not specially imputed to me. 



49 



The second, third, and fourth paragraphs. 

2. To confine the pi-e?ent crisis to the simple question of the excise is to reduce 
it far below its true scale; it is indubitably connected with a general explosion 
for some time prepared in the public mind, but which this local and precipitate 
eruption will cause to miscarry, or at least check for a long time; — in order to 
see the real cause, in order to calculate the effect, and the consequences, we 
must ascend to the origin of the parties existing in the State, and retrace their 
progress. 

3. The present system of government has created malcontents. This is the 
lot of all new things. My predecessors have given information in detail upon 
the parts of the system which have particularly awakened clamors and produced 
enemies to the whole of it. The primitive divisions of opinion as to the politi- 
cal form of the State, and the limits of the sovereignty of the whole over each 
State individually sovereign, had created the federalists and the anti-federalists. 
From a whimsical contrast between the name and the real opinion of the parties, 
a contrast hitherto little understood in Europe, the former aimed, and still aim, 
wiih all their power, to annihilate federalism, whilst the latter have always 
wished to preserve it. This contrast was created by the Consolidators or the 
Constitutionalists,* who, being first in giving the denominations (a matter so im- 
portant in a revolution,) took for themselves that which was the most popular, 
although in reality it contradicted their ideas, and gave to their rivals one which 
woulii draw on them the attention of the people, notwithstanding they really 
wished to preserve a system whose prejudices should cherish at least the memory 
and tlie name. 

4. Moreover, these first divisions, of the nature of those to be destroyed by 
time, in proportion as the nation should have advanced in the experiment of a 
form of government which rendered it flourishing, might now have completely 
disappeared, if the system of finances which had its birth in the cradle of the 
Constitution, had not renewed their vigor under various forms. The mode of 
organizing the national credit, the consolidating and funding of the public debt, 
the introduction in the political economy of the usage of States, which prolong 
their existence or ward off their fall only by expedients, imperceptibly created a 
financiering class who threaten to become the aristocratical order of the State. 
Several citizens, and among others those who had aided in establishing inde^ 
pendence with their purses or their arms, conceived themselves aggrieved by 
those fiscal engagements. Hence an opposition which declares itself between 
the farming or agricultural interest, and that of the fiscal; federalism and anti- 
federalism, which are founded on those new denominations, in proportion as the 
treasury usurps a preponderance in the government and legislation: Hence in 
fine, the State, divided into partizans and enemies of the treasurer and of his 
theories. In this new classification of parties, the nature of things gave popu- 
larity to the latter, an innate instinct, if I may use the expression, caused the 
ears of tht- people to revolt at the names alone of treasurer and stockjobber: but 
the opposite party, in consequence of its ability, obstinately persisted in leaving 
to its adversaries the suspicious name of anti-federalists, whilst in reality they 
were friends of the Constitution, and enemies only of the excrescences which 
financiering theories threatened to attach to it. 

* Conttituans. 



50 

Not being expressly quoted in these paragraphs I am bound to no 
reply upon them. The magnitude of the insurrection had indeed been 
announced by the President in his proclamation of the 7th of August, 
1794, when he charged it with striking at "the very existence of govern- 
ment, and the fundamental principles of social order." Every passage 
in these paragraphs is plainly the fruit of Mr. Fauchet's own speculations. 

The fifth paragraph. 

5. It is useless to stop longer to prove that the monarchical system was inter- 
woven with those novelties of finances, and that the friends of the latter favored 
the attempts Tvhich were made in order to bring the Constitution to the former 
by insensible gradations. The writings of influential men of this party prove 
it; their real opinions too avow it, and the journals of the Senate are the deposi- 
tory of the first attempts. 

Here too Mr. Fauchet refers for his authority, not to myself, but to 
the writings of influential men, who patronized the financial system; to 
their avowed opinions; and to the journals of the Senate. 

The sixth paragraph. 

6. Let us, therefore, free ourselves from the intermediate spaces in which the 
progress of the system is mai'ked, since they can add nothing to the proof of its 
existence — Let us pass by its sympathy with our regenerating movements, while 
running in monarchical paths — Let us arrive at the situauon in which our Pie- 
publican revolution has placed things and parties. 

This paragraph is a mere introduction to some of those which follow. 
The seventh paragraph. 

7. The anti-federalists disembarrass themselves of an insignificant denomina- 
tion, and take that of patriots and of republicans. Their adversaries become 
aristocrats, notwithstanding their eiforts to preserve the advantageous illusion of 
ancient names; opinions clash, and press each other; the aristocratic attempts, 
which formerly had appeared so insignificant, are recollected: The treasurer, 
who is looked upon as their first source, is attacked; his operations and plans 
are denounced to the public opinion; nay, in the sessions of 1792 and 1793, a 
solemn inquiry into his administration was obtained. This first victory was to 
produce another, and it was hoped that, faulty or innocent, the treasurer would 
retire, no less by necessity in the one case, than from self-love in tue other. He, 
emboldened by the triumph which he obtained in the useless inquiry of his ene- 
mies, of which both objects proved equally abortive, seduced besides by the 
momentary reverse of republicanism in Europe, removes the mask and aim ounces 
the approaching triumph of his principles. 

The entire complexion of this paragraph makes it so peculiarly Mr. 
Fauchet's own speculation, that it is almost useless to declare, that^I 
never heard or believed, that the inquiry into the conduct of Mr. Ham- 
ilton was to drive him from office, whether he were guilty or innocent. 



61 



The eighth paragraph. 

8. In the mean time the popular secietiesare formed; political ideas concenter 
themselves, the patriotic party unite and more closely connect themselves ; they 
gain a formidable majority in the legislature; the abasement of commerce, the 
slavery of navigation, and the audacity of England strengthen it. A concert of 
declarations and censures against the government arises ; at which the latter is 
even itself astonished. 

From what source Mr. Fauchet collected the supposed astonishment of 
the government at the concert of declarations and censures, I cannot 
trace; unless he imagined that the attacks upon the Popular Societies, 
in the year 1793, which were understood to proceed from officers then in 
the administration, were agreeable to the wishes of some branch of the 
government. 

The ninth, tenth, and eleventh paragraphs. 

9. Such was the situation of things towards the close of the last and at the 
beginning of the present year. Let us pass over the discontents which were 
most generally expressed in these critical moments. They have been sent to 
you at different periods, and in detail. In every quarter are arraigned the im- 
becility of the government towards Great Britain, the defenceless state of the 
country against possible invasions, the coldness towards the French Republic : 
the system of finance is attacked, which threatens eternizing the debt under 
pretext of making it the guarantee of public happiness ; the complication of that 
system which withholds from general inspection all its operations, — the alarming 
power of the influence it procures to a man whose principles are regarded as 
dangerous, — the preponderance which that man acquires from day to day in 
public measures, and in a word the immoral and impolitic modes of taxation, 
which he at first presents as expedients, and afterwards raises to permanency. 

10. In touching this last point we attain the principal complaint of the west- 
ern people, and the ostensible motive of their movements. Republicans by 
principle, independent by character and situation, they could not but accede with 
enthusiasm to the criminations which we have sketched. But the excise above 
all affects them. Their lands are fertile, watered with the finest rivei-s in 
the world; but the abundant fruits of their labor run the risk of perishino- for 
the want of means of exchanging them, as those more happy cultivators do for 
objects which desire indicates to all men who have known only the enjoyments 
which Europe procures them. They therefore convert the excess of their pro- 
duce into liquors imperfectly fabricated, which badly supply the place of those 
they might procure by exchange. The excise is created and strikes at this con- 
soling transformation; their complaints are answered by the only pretext that 
they are otherwise inaccessible to every species of impost. But why, in contempt 
of treaties, are they left to bear the yoke of the feeble Spaniard, as to the Mis- 
sissippi, for upwards of twelve years? Since when has an agricultural people 
submitted to the unjust capricious law of a people explorers of the precious 
metals? Might we not suppose that Madrid and Philadelphia mutually assisted 
in prolonging the slavery of the river ; that the proprietors of a barren coast are 
afraid lest the Mississippi, once opened, and its numerous branches brought into 



52 

activity, their fields might become deserts, and in a word that commerce dreads 
having rivals in those interior parts as soon as their inhabitants shall cease to 
be subjects? This last supposition is but too well founded; an influential mem- 
ber of the Senate, Mr. Izard, one day in conversation undisguisedly announced 
it to me. 

11. I shall be more brief in my observations on the murmurs excited by the 
system for the sale of lands. It is conceived to be unjust that these vast and 
fertile regions should be sold by provinces to capitalists, who thus enrich them- 
selves, and retail, vvith immense profits, to the husbandmen, possessions which 
they have never seen. If there were not a latent design to arrest the rapid set- 
tlement of those lands, and to prolong their infant state, why not open in the 
west land offices, where every body, without distinction, should be admitted to 
purchase by a small or large quantity ? Why reserve to sell or distribute to 
favorites, to a clan of flatterers, of courtiers, that which belongs to the State, 
and which should be sold to the greatest possible jsrofit of all its members? 

These paragraphs contain nothing, which requires an answer from me. 

The twelfth paragraph. 

12. Such therefore were the parts of the public grievance, upon which the 
western people most insisted. Now, as the common dispatches inform you, these 
complaints were systematizing by the conversations of influential men who re- 
tired into those wild countries, and who from principle, or by a series of partic- 
ular heart-burnings, animated discontents already too near to efl'ervescence. At 
last the local explosion is effected. The western people calculated on being sup- 
ported by some distinguished characters in the east, and even imagined that they 
had in the bosom of the government some abettors, who might share in their 
grievances or their principles. 

Let him step forward, who can prove by a single fact, that any coun- 
tenance was given by me to the insurrection. 

The thirteenth paragraph. 

13. From what I have detailed above, those men might indeed be supposed 
numerous. The sessions of 1793 and 1794 had given importance to the republi- 
can party, and solidity to its accusations. The propositions of Mr. Madison, or 
his project of a navigation act, of which Mr. Jefi'erson was originally the author, 
sapped the British interest, now an integral part of the financiering system. 
Mr. Taylor, a republican member of the Senate, published towards the end of 
the session, three pamphlets, in which this last is explored to its origin, and de- 
veloped in its progress and consequences with force and method. In the last he 
asserts that the decrepid state of affairs resulting from that system, could not 
but presage, under a rising government, either a revolution or a civil wai'. 

This paragraph is only a brief narrative of some proceedings in Con- 
gress, and of three pamphlets which were published. 

The fourteenth paragraph. 

14. The first was preparing : the government, which had foreseen it, repro- 



63 

duced, under various forms, the demand of a disposable * force which might 
put it in a respectable state of defence. Defeated in this measure, who can aver 
that it may not have hastened the local eruption, in order to make an advanta- 
geous diversion, and to lay the more general storm which it saw gathering? Am I 
not authorized in forming this conjecture from the conversation which the Secre- 
tary of State had with me and Le Blanc, alone, an account of which you have 
in my dispatch, No. 3 ? But how may we expect that this new plan will be exe- 
cuted? By exasperating and severe measures, authorized by a law which was 
not solicited till the close of the session. This law gave to the one already ex- 
isting for collecting the excise a coercive force which hitherto it had not possessed, 
and a demand of which was not before ventured to be made.-}- By means of this 
new law all the refractory citizens to the old one were caused to be pursued with 
a sudden rigor; a great number of writs were issued; doubtless the natural con- 
sequences from a conduct so decisive and so harsh were expected ; and before these 
were manifested the means of repression had been prepared ; this was undoubt- 
edly what Mr. Randolph meant in telling me that under pretext of giving energy 
to the government it was intended to introduce absolute power, and to mislead the 
President in paths which would conduct him to unpopularity. 

To the reflection, that " a revolution was preparing ; and that the 
government, which had foreseen it, reproduced, under various forms, the 
demand of a disposable force, which might put it in a respectable state 
of defence," Mr. Fauchet was not conducted by any information from 
me. The fii'st part of it originated with himself: For the latter whether 
it was right or wrong, he was probably indebted to the journals of the 
two houses of Congress, to their debates, as published in the news- 
papers, and to public conversations. From some or all of these, it ap- 
peared, that on the 11th of December, 1793, a bill was ordered into the 
House of Representatives for completing the military establishment : that 
on the 31st of January 1794, it was rejected by the Senate : that on 
the 20th of March 1794, the same bill was revived in that house under 
a new title : that on the 6th of May 1791, this bill was also lost by a 
disagreement between the two houses : that on the 12th of March 1794, 
a motion had been made in the House of Representatives to increase 
the then military establishment of five thousand men by an addition of 
fifteen regiments of one thousand men each : that on the first of April 
1794, a bill was brought in to increase the military establislhnent by 
adding twenty-five thousand instead of the fifteen thousand men ; that 
on the 19th of May 1794, this bill was discussed, and the twenty-five 
thousand men being struck out, a motion was made for fifteen thousand, 
which being lost, another motion was made for ten thousand; which 
being also lost, the bill itself was totally rejected : that on the 24th of 



* Disporiible. 

fThis law was mentinned in the commeDl upon the laws of the last session inclosed in No. 9 
of the correspondence of the minister. 



54 

May 1794, a committee was appointed in the Senate to report further 
measures for the defence of the United States : that on the 26th of 
May 1794, that committee reported an increase of ten thousand men to 
the military establishment: that on the 30th of May 1794, the bill 
which had passed the Senate for that increase was rejected by the House 
of Representatives : that a bill for the defence of the South Western 
frontier, by posts to be garrisoned with militia, and by patroles, or 
"scouting parties of militia, passed the House of Representatives on the 
29th of May 1794 ; that the Senate changed this bill entirely by an 
amendment for raising and adding a new legion of twelve hundred men, 
with the bounty of twenty dollars for each recruit : that on the 8th of 
June 1794, the bill and amendment were entirely lost ; that on the very 
last day of the session, the 9th of June 1794, a bill was brought into 
the Senate "to authorize the President in case he should not deem 
it expedient to employ any part of the then military establishment 
in the defence of the south-western frontier, to raise, equip, and officer 
a new legion of twelve hundred men for that purpose ; to be raised for 
three years, at the same pay and emoluments of the other troops, but 
with the bounty of twenty dollars to each recruit ;" that this bill was 
read twice in the Senate ; but on the question for its third and last 
reading, one of the members enforced the rule, that " no bill shall be 
read three times in the same day without unanimous consent ;" and by 
his veto the bill was defeated. I shall give no opinion upon these pro- 
ceedings ; nor yet upon any messages from the executive, which might 
have suggested some of them. But I have been thus particular ; to 
evince that Mr. Fauchet did not stand in need of confessions from any 
public officer. 

Mr. Fauchet then asks, if he be not authorized by the conversation 
with me, mentioned in his dispatch No. 3, to conjecture, that the gov- 
ernment, defeated in the demand of a disposable force, hastened the 
local eruption, in order to make an advantageous diversion, and to lay 
the more general storm, which it saw gathering ? I deny, that he ever 
was authorized by any conversation whatsoever with me, to form even a 
conjecture of that kind ; and with equal positiveness I also deny, every 
other conclusion, which he makes in this paragraph. 

It is of no small weight to bear in mind, that the date of the conver- 
sation is fixed by Mr. Fauchet's certificate to have been in April 1794. 
I recollect to have had one with Mr. Fauchet and Mr. Le Blanc, about 
that time, on public matters, in which the French Republic was inte- 
rested. But how was it possible for me to infer from any acts of the 
government, known to me, that it was hastening the local eruption ? 
With the excise, the department of state was not concerned : it be- 
longed to the treasury-department, and was there managed, I believe, 



55 

even to the instructions for the issuing of process. It was in April 
1794: understood by me to remain on its old footing, without any fresh 
irritation. As the law, to which Mr. Fauchet refers, did not pass until 
the 5th of June 1794, and he wrote his letter on the 31st of October 
following, you will perceive, that he blends two different dates together, 
for he deduces from a conversation in April, that means of coercion 
were provided beforehand, when those very supposed means were pro- 
vided, according to his own account, only by the law, which is found to 
have passed two months afterwards. If exasperating and severe mea- 
sures were contemplated in April, to be enforced by a then future law, 
I was an utter stranger to them. Besides, Mr. Fauchet does not seem 
to have had the dispatch No. 3 before him, when he wrote in October; 
as in the concluding sentence of the paragraph he gives, what he deems 
to be the synonymous meaning, not the words themselves; nor yet an 
accurate view of the conversation. But if the very words had been as 
unqualified, as he states, they would not warrant his cocclusion ; espe- 
cially, when at the beginning of the next paragraph he doubts, whether 
the commotion was provoked by the government, or produced by chance. 

Before, however, I examine the dispatch No. 3, let me concentre the 
actual state of things in April 1794 ; in order that I may compass the 
general scope of the conversation, and thus contribute to explain it. 

Notwithstanding Mr, Fauchet was sent to replace Mr. Genet, he 
shews in this very letter. No. 10, that his communications were links of 
the chain of intelligence, which had been carried on by his predecessors. 
Having incorporated into his own family the members of Mr. Genet's; 
and hearing of a particular attention, which was paid to all the applica- 
tions from the British minister, he entered into his diplomatic career, 
with uncertainties, and unpleasant sensations towards our government. 
You were aware of this danger ; for when he was introduced to you on 
the 22d of February 1794, you poured forth the strongest language 
of affection to the French cause. France was then flushed with victory. 
An obnoxious minister had been recalled at your instance. You ex- 
pected a war with Great Britain. In short you declared to me, that the 
French government must be cultivated with assiduity and warmth. In 
spite of all my efforts to pursue your wishes, I discovered in a few 
weeks, that suspicions were lurking in his bosom. 1. His manner in- 
dicated, that he doubted the sincerity of your professions in favor of his 
country, and was anxious to determine, how far you were republican. — 
2. It was ri vetted in his judgment, that some very influential gentlemen 
around you, were, and had expressed themselves to be, hostile to its 
cause. — 3. He believed, that extreme rigor had been practised upon 
French cruizers and French prizes, under instructions from the treasury- 
department; and that great indulgence had been allowed to British 



56 

ships. — 4. He believed, ttat in your very cabinet, snares were laid to 
detacb you from France, and to ally the United States to Great Britain. 
5. He believed, that the government had its mysteries, which led to the 
holding of a fair language to France, and to the substantial acting with 
partiality for Great Britain ; or (to use an expression in one of his 
letters) that the federal officers were all Jire to do, what should be 
pleasing to England ; and all ice to France. — 6. He had heard the 
charges made in public discourses, that some members of the govern- 
ment considered our constitution, as a mere stepping-stone to something 
else ; not less than a monarchy, which might not be so friendly to a 
French Republic, as an American Republic* — 7. He believed, that he 
saw in a bill, depending before Congress, an instrument for this purpose, 
and for the harassing of the French cause. — 8. He believed, that the 
affairs of France and the spirit of the American people were misrepre- 
sented to you, and distorted. — He wavered, as to your perseverance in a 
resentment of the British outrages. — 10. He was alarmed at the pro- 
jected mission of Mr. Jay. — And 11. He distantly, though delicately 
hinted a fear, lest the political divisions in the United States might 
weaken the government, and excite a considerable conflict. — For ideas 
like these, he wanted no aid from a Secretary of State. Public rumor 
was a fruitful nursery. If I have not occasionally intimated these 
things to you, none have been designedly concealed from you. — Many 
of them you have undoubtedly received from my mouth. 

Silence was not my course. It was pre-eminently my duty, in April 
1794, not to suff"er France, to whom we owed so much, to be in sus- 
pense as to our predilection for Great Britain, from whom we had expe- 
rienced, and were experiencing, every oppression. 

In choosing my measui'es, I had a safe clue in the position of affairs, 
as seen and felt by yourself. — 1. Your message to Congress, on the 5th 
of December 1793, announces an unfriendly temper to Great Britain. — 
2. Your nomination of Mr. Jay implies it in itself — you always pro- 
fessed — and your letter to me on the 15th of April 1794 proves, that if 
Great Britain did not redress our complaints in a reasonable time, war 



* Extract from the instructions to Col. Monroe, tvhen he went to France as Minister 
Plenipotentiary of the United States; which were approved by the President. 

"If we may judge from what has been at different times uttered by Mr. Fau- 
chet, he will represent the existence of two parties here, ii-reconcilable to each 
other ; — one republican, and friendly to the French revolution ; the other mon- 
archical, aristocratic, Britannic, aiid anti-Gallican : that a majority of the 
House of Representatives, the people, and the President are in the first class ; 
and a majority of the Senate in the second. If this intelligence should be used, 
in order to inspire a distrust of our good-will to France ; you will industriously 
obviate such an effect," &c. 



5T 

was in your opinion to be the consequence. That letter thus expresses 
your sentiments upon the draught of the message, nominating Mr. Jay : 
" My objects are to prevent a war, if justice can be obtained by fair and 
strong representations (to be made by a special envoy) of the injuries, 
which this country has sustained from Great Britain, in various ways : — 
to put it in a complete state of military defence — and to provide event- 
ually such measures, as seem to be now pending in Congress, for execu- 
tion, if negotiation in a reasonable time proves unsuccessful." — 3. Your 
instructions to Mr. Jay had reference to an alliance with Russia, Den- 
mark, and Sweden, against Great Britain, if our differences with her 
should not be adjusted. — 4. Your instructions to Col. Monroe, which 
were sketched about this time, to be ready for any person, who should 
be appointed, command him, to "let it be seen, that in case of war with 
any nation upon earth" (an expression absolutely aimed at Great Brit- 
ain) " we shall consider France as our first and natural ally." In these 
instructions are many other fervent professions to France. — 5. The 
plundering under the British instructions of the 6th of November 
1793, and the stirring up of the Indians had drawn forth in the House 
of Representatives various propositions of reprisal. — 6. That house was 
indisputably attached to France. — 7. Your orders ; your letters ; your 
speeches; breathed enmity to Great Britain and affection to France. 
You even excluded from your public room, men who were obnoxious to 
France. 

By these facts my conduct towards Mr. Fauchet was guided. — 1. I 
urged upon him your declaration at his reception, that you were a friend 
to the cause of the French people ; and, as he expresses it in his letter 
No. 10, "truly virtuous, and the friend of your fellow-citizens and of 
principles." — 2. I bade him to rely on YOU; to disregard the sugges- 
tions of your being influenced by any subordinate ministers against 
France; and to apprehend nothing from them, while you were steadfast. 
3. I exerted myself to satisfy him, that he complained without reason of 
severity upon the French cruisers; and the same arguments have been 
since extended in letters approved by you. — 4. I represented to him, 
that, if snares were laid for you, you would escape from them ; and more 
particularly if their object was the abandonment of France, and an ad- 
herence to Great Britain : that although like other men, who do not mix 
with the world, you might be sometimes misled, your industry and dis- 
cernment would protect you from traps. — 5. I denied, that the actions 
and professions of our government in regard to France were at variance ; 
and I have often denied it in writing. — 6. As to the conversion of our 
government into a monarchy, I stated, that this would not be done with 
your assent. For while you were desirous of rendering it stable only 
and energetic; I did not undertake to answer for the views of every 



58 

man, who, under this pretence, might he willing to snatch something 
more ; hut I was confident, that you would not thus commit your popu- 
larity. — 7. It must, I think, have been subsequent to the time of the 
conversation, alluded to in No. 3, that I commented upon the bill which 
seemed to aiFect him so deeply; and that I assured him, that from your 
yielding to the remarks which I made to you upon it, he had an abso- 
lute security against the abuse of the powers confided to you. — 8. I had 
no data, upon which to contradict his opinion, that the affairs of France, 
and the spirit of the American people might have been disfigured to 
you. But you will do me the justice to acknowledge, that when I spoke 
to you of the one or the other, I disguised from you no truth, howsoever 
unpalatable, and I was always free to declare in your presence, that I 
never would. — 9. I did not disguise my persuasion that nothing short 
of the most ample restitution and compensation would atone with you 
for the outrages of Great Britain. This was a justifiable expedient for 
calming Mr. Fauchet's fears on the mission of Mr. Jay. — 10. In my 
endeavors to refute his estimate of the prevailing political divisions; I 
certainly did place much of my hope on you. Having often without 
reserve told you, that as long as you were superior to party, party would 
be impotent, and unable to perpetrate mischief, I have very probably 
uttered an expectation of acquiring with you influence enough, to pre- 
vail on you to step forth in opposition to any set of men, who should 
seek to aggrandize themselves at the expense of the Constitution, or of 
the people. 

If in all this I have erred, it is mere error ; but the error is not mine. 
It was derived from the spirit of your own movements, and our political 
prospects in April 1794. But it was not an error. It was a sound and 
honest policy ; it was an indispensable one for maintaining harmony with 
France; it was rendered indispensable by the crisis, which had been 
forced upon Mr. Fauchet's mind, from the conviction, that artifice and 
hostility to republicanism were tearing the United States asunder from 
France. It was the policy of the 2)eo2^le of the United States. Had the 
threatened war with Great Britain been realized; then this policy would 
have shone forth with lustre; then would the reverse have been warmly 
reprehended. Had it not been observed; you would probably have long 
ago heard from France, murmurs which it might have been diflEicult to 
appease. 

The foregoing observations have anticipated much of the attention 
due to the dispatch No. 3. But it is proper to subjoin a few more par- 
ticular remarks : because it is not a correct statement of the conversa- 
tion; and is evidently defective, in omitting the part which Mr. Fauchet 
himself had in it, and in not exhibiting what I said as it really was, — 
an answer to the objections advanced by him. His certificate too, although 



59 

it cannot fail to be satisfactory to the people of the United States, has 
been less explicit, than it would have been, had it been in my power to 
have interrogated him upon its several parts, after it was composed. 

That I was always deeply affected by the very possibility of a conflict 
between the parties in the United States, my letter to you in June 1792, 
and my constant declarations to you are a decided testimony. That in- 
telligence of the existence of party-bitterness came to Mr. Fauchet 
through other channels, than myself, is notorious to those who have read 
the newspapers. Or, if it were necessary to demonstrate its publicity, 
I might quote a sentence in a paper, written at the beginning of the 
year 1791, for your use, and approved by you. "It is certainly much 
to be regretted, that party-discriminations are so far geographical as they 
are; and that ideas of a severance of the Union are creeping in both 
North and South." 

Without pretending to recollect the minutiae of the conversation, I 
avow, that I did hope to acquire an influence every day on your mind; 
and I will unfold the grounds of my hope; the means which I adopted 
for its accomplishment; and my final object. 

You will acknowledge. Sir, I am sure, that I never attempted to de- 
preciate in your esteem any of my colleagues in office; nor ever to 
magnify or blazon any merit of my own. The species of influence there- 
fore, to which I directed my labors, was not that of raising myself on 
their ruins. 

I came from Virginia as Attorney Greneral of the United States, irre- \ 
sistibly impelled by the friendship of your invitation. I was ushered 
by you into the most confidential business; and, I believe, without the 
privity of the heads of departments. You connected me with you still 
more in the year 1793; and afterwards pressed me into another office, 
which I did not covet, and which I would not have accepted, had I not 
been governed by my affection for you, my trust in your republicanism, 
and your apparent superiority to the artifices of my enemies. 

These germs of confidence, unequivocally disclosed by you, I did in- 
deed cherish. But how ? By art or management ? No, Sir. By telling 
you the truth, without hesitation; without a momentary acquiescence in 
the prejudices of any man; by defending your character with zeal; and 
by advising measures, which should spread over the President of the 
United States, the glowing colors, in which General Washington had 
been painted to mankind. — j 

Nor was my object less honorable than my means. You have my 
opinion under my hand, that while you should be untainted by the sus- 
picion of being a favorer of party, your name would be a bulwark against 
party-rage. My hope therefore of acquiring influence was to put intes- 
tine convulsion at defiance, by persuading you to abhor party. You 



60 

cannot believe, that I ever manoeuverecl with you for any emolunaent to 
myself; nor that I was an advocate for France, but by plain dealing and 
frankness, which her enemies might curse, but could not criticise. 

Lest the trifling circumstance of visiting you should be wrought up 
by the malignant into a scheme of seduction; the admonition, which Mr. 
Fauchet ascribes to me, must not pass without a comment. As an arti- 
fice, it is too paltry to be dwelt upon. This probably was the truth of 
the case. It is a tribute of respect from foreign ministers to our Chief 
Magistrate, to wait on him at proper intervals. Mr. Fauchet was anx- 
ous to learn, how private visits were to be regulated. I could not forget 
how much his predecessor had absented himself from you, even before 
the rupture ; and I probably recommended to him to perform this official 
civility; with the additional assurance, that he would be received in an 
easy style, whensoever he should be disposed to a private visit. Is it 
not an indication of a propensity to swell little matters, thus to inter- 
weave them in a formal political dispatch ? 

In whatsoever shape the drawing the bands of the two nations closer 
may have been advised, I remember not. But I was always watchful 
in repelling the imputation of neglect to embrace the overtures of a com- 
mercial treaty. It was natural for me, at the juncture of Mr. Jay's 
mission, to efi'ace every idea of an indifierence to an improved commer- 
cial connection with France. In a word, Sir, when you combine Mr. 
Fauchet's own admission, that I refused some information, as being con- 
trary to my duty to be divulged, and that he did not fulfill a promise, as 
he says, to burn a particular paper, (which, howeve \n delivered un- 
der your direction); the dispatch No. 3, is sufficiently confronted by his 
certificate or my own assertion. 

The fifteenth and sixteenth paragraphs. 

15. Whether the explosion has been provoked by the government, or owes its 
birth to accident, it is certain that a commotion of some hundreds of men, who 
have not since been found in arms, and the very pacific union of the counties in 
Braddock's field, a union which has not been revived, were not symptoms which 
could justify the raising of so great a force as 15,000 men. Besides the princi- 
ples, uttered in the declarations hitherto made public, rather announced ardent 
minds to be calmed than anarchists to be subdued. But in order to obtain some- 
thing on the public opinion prepossessed against the demands contemplated to be 
made, it was necessary to magnify the danger, to disfigure the views of those 
people, to attribute to them the design of uniting themselves with England, to 
alarm the citizens for the fate of the Constitution, whilst in reality the revolu- 
tion threatened only the ministers. This step succeeded; an army is raised; 
this military part of the suppression is doubtless Mr. Hamilton's, the pacific part 
and the sending of commissioners are due to the influence of Mr. Randolph over 
the mind of the President, whom I delight always to believe, and whom I do 
believe, truly virtuous, and the friend of his fellow-citizens and principles. 

16. In the mean time, although there was a certainty of having an army, yet 



61 

it was necessary to assure themselves of co-operators among the men, whose 
patriotic reputation might influence their party, and whose luke-warmness or 
want of energy in the existing conjunctures might compromit the success of the 
plans. Of all the governors, whose duty it was to appear at the head of the 
requisitions, the Governor of Pennsylvania alone enjoyed the name of Republi- 
can; his opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury and of his system was known 
to be unfavorable. The Secretary of this State possessed great influence in the 
Popular Society of Philadelphia, which in its turn influenced those of other 
States; of course he merited attention. It appears therefore that these men 
with others unknown to me, all having without doubt Randolph at their head, 
were balancing to decide on their party. Two or thi-ee days before the procla- 
mation was published, and of course before the Cabinet had resolved on its 
measures, Mr. Randolph came to see me with an air of great eagerness, and 
made to me the overtures of which I have given you an account in my No. 6. \\ 
Thus with some thousands of dollars the Republic could have decided on civil 
war or on peace! Thus the consciences of the pretended patriots of America 
have ab-eady their prices ! * It is very true that the certainty of these conclu- 
sions, painful to be drawn, will forever exist in our archives ! What will be the 
old age of this government, if it is thus early decrepid ! Such, Citizen, is the 
evident consequence of the system of finances conceived by Mr. Hamilton. He 
has made of a whole nation, a stock-jobbing, speculating, selfish people. Paches 
alone here fix consideration ; and as no one likes to be despised, they are univer- 
sally sought after. Nevertheless this depravity has not yet embraced the mass 
of the people; the efl'ects of this pernicious system have as yet but slightly 
touched them. Still there are patriots, of whom I delight to entertain an idea 
worthy of that imposing title. Consult Monroe, he is of this number ; he had 
apprised rae of the men whom the cun-ent of events had dragged along as bodies 
devoid of weight. His friend Madison is also an honest man. JeS"erson, on 
whom the patriots cast their eyes to succeed the President, had foreseen these 
crises. He prudently retired, in order to avoid making a figure against his incli- 
nation in scenes, the secret of which will soon or late be brought to light. 

The meeting at Braddock's field was announced in every newspaper: 
and wore too formidable an aspect to be called pacific. When it was 
determined to raise an army, I proposed the augmentation from 12,500 
to 15,000 men; hoping that the unhappy people would be intimidated 
by so large a force, and the introduction of a corps of riflemen under 
General Morgan, whose name was reported to be a terror to them. It 
was wise to overawe them; for had they, in some rash moment, made 
battle, allured by a false comparison of their strength and situation with 
the power which was marching against them, still greater bodies of 
troops would have been assembled, and war would have raged with all 
its severities. 

After Mr. Fauchet's declaration, that he does not speak from me, ex- 
cept where he particularly quotes me, it will scarcely be required of me 
to deny, that Mr. Hamilton's ideas, or my own, in consultation with you, 
were communicated by me to him; or yet, that the gentlemen who were 

* Tariff. 



62 

to appear at the head of the requisitions, or any others, associated in the 
Popular Societies, were ever named by me to him, in reference to the 
insurrection. But I do deny the latter, upon the best of my recollec- 
tion ; and upon the further ground, that I had not the smallest authority 
for so naming them. I also deny the former: and can affirm, that it 
was a subject of conversation in Philadelphia, but not through my 
means, that your advisers were divided in opinion as to the immediate 
marching of the militia. 

Howsoever fashionable it may have been for officers in the federal 
government to form political connections with influential persons in the 
state governments, I had formed none such. But it is said in Mr. Fau- 
chet's letter, that I was at the head of those, who balanced in deciding 
upon the part to be taken. Being almost an intire stranger to the in- 
habitants in the western counties of Pennsylvania, I could have few 
personal regards ; and I will not waste time in proving, what you well 
know, that order and good government have been always near to my 
heart. Upon what then could I balance ? The tenor of my opinions 
on that event I will now retrace. 

When the violence at Col. Neville's house, on the 17th of July, 1794, 
and the commotion at Braddoek's field were ascertained, I concurred with 
the other gentlemen of the administration, in the treasonableness of 
those acts, and in the necessity of resorting to the militia, if the laws 
were inadequate. Affidavits, letters, and a variety of papers were laid 
before you to establish the existence of an insurrection ; and although I 
doubted, whether a judge would, upon them, at that time, and under the 
then circumstances grant a certificate of insurrection; yet I agreed, that 
those documents ought to be submitted to judicial cognizance. At a 
conference, held on the first Saturday in August, 1794, between yourself 
and Governor Mifflin, and the federal and state 'officers, it was observed, 
that even if the insurrection were confined to the four western counties 
of Pennsylvania, the militia, which could be procured from thence, at 
that stage of the affair, would probably be unequal to the task of subdu- 
ing the insurrection : that the insurgents, being upwards of sixty thou- 
sand souls, had friends elsewhere : and that a letter had been received 
from Kentucky, giving an account of the British government fomenting 
disturbances there. The affidavit of a person from Pittsburg was read, 
corroborating the suspicions, that the British were abetting the insur- 
gents. "Well do I remember my remark; that, if the British were at 
the bottom of the convulsion, it took a serious and very important direc- 
tion : since, among the reasons for suspending the settlement at Presqu' 
isle, the apprehension of them was one. To shew my own impression of 
British interference in the western troubles, I refer to the following pas- 
sage in my letter to you of the 5th of August, 1794. — "If the intelli- 



63 

gence of the overtures of the British to the western counties be true, 
and the inhabitants should be driven to accept their aid ; the supplies of 
the western army — the western army itself may be destroyed ; the re- 
union of that country to the United States will be impracticable; and 
we must be engaged in a British war. If the intelligence be probable 
only ; how difficult will it be to reconcile the world to believe, that we 
have been consistent in our conduct ; when, after running the hazard of 
mortally offending the French by the punctilious observance of neutral- 
ity; — after deprecating the wrath of the English by every possible act of 
government ; after the request for the suspension of the settlement at 
Presqu' isle, which has in some measure been founded on the possibility 
of Great Britain being roused to arms by it; we pursue measures, which 
threaten collision with Great Britain, and which are mixed with the 
blood of our fellow-citizens." To shew, that the governor of Pennsyl- 
vania thought the British movements to be of some weight, I refer to 
this expression in his first letter to you. — " Nor in this view of the sub- 
ject ought we to omit paying some regard to the ground for suspecting, 
that the British government has already, insidiously and unjustly at- 
tempted to seduce the citizens on our western frontier from their duty ; 
and we know, that in a moment of desperation, or disgust, men may be 
led to accept that, as an asylum^ which under different impressions, they 
would shun as a snare." iTo shew, that the federal commissioners 
deemed the report as to the British worthy of inquiry ; and that they 
were actually inticing our citizens for one purpose at least, I refer to a 
passage in Mr. Bradford's letter on the 17th of August, 1794. — " I for- 
got to mention, that I have not been able to discover any inclination in 

the insurgents to avail themselves of British protection : but Mr. 

informs me, that he has direct intelligence, that about the last of July, 
two men from Detroit appeared in Washington county, to get an associa- 
tion to go and settle lands at the mouth of the Cayahoga ; and that at 
the time his informant saw the paper, there were about four hundred 
names subscribed. He believes, they are at present on the waters of 
Buffaloe Creek."! To shew your own sense of British interference in 
the insurrection, I refer to an extract from my letter to Mr. Jay, on the 
18th of August, 1794, approved by yourself. — "We cannot add upon 
proofs that British influence has been tampering with the people of 
Kentucky, and of the neighborhood of Pittsburg, to seduce them from 
the United States, or to encourage them in a revolt against the general 
government. It has however been boasted of by them, and an expecta- 
tion of such support is suspected to have been excited in the breasts of 
some." I will not say, that the government did wrong, in discarding all 
scruples with respect to British hostility. But I was prompted to write 



64 

to you my letter* of the 5th of August, 1794, against the immediate 
operation of the militia, by this, among other considerations ; that I 
heard an influential member of your administration wish, that the peo- 
ple, assembled at Braddoek's field, had burnt Pittsburg, as they threat- 
ened ; and I was apprehensive, that as soon as the first step of military 
force was taken, you might be pushed to march the militia, notwith- 
standing the commissioners should report, as in fact they flattered them- 
selves on the 21st of August, 1794, that opposition to the laws would 
cease. Was not this the meaning of a declaration in your presence, at 
the abovementioned conference, that it was not enough to restore things 
to the state in which they were six weeks before ? But I united in the 
advice of the 25th of August, 1794, for marching the militia. If then 
to declare without reserve, that the militia must be employed to support 
the laws, provided they could not be executed by the ofiicers of the law; 
to be solicitous to avert a civil war ; and save, if possible, a million of 
dollars to the United States ; to be cautious in the expenditure of mo- 
ney, for which there had been no appropriation ; and to convince the 
people, that every conciliatory plan had been exhausted, in warding ofi" 
the emergency; — if this be to balance, then did I balance, not otherwise. 

The day, on which I visited Mr. Fauchet, was about the 5th of Au- 
gust, 1794, after the first proclamation was ordered. He was at his 
country-house on the Schuylkill ; I was never there but once ; and then 
I staid only for twenty minutes — a short space for an overture of con- 
spiracy. As to my air, I am ready, without however recollecting it, to 
admit every appearance of trouble ; for I was weighed down by the 
thought, and calamitous necessity, of shedding the blood of citizen by 
citizen. 

Conscious, as I was, that upon the subject of money, nothing had 
passed between Mr. Fauchet and myself, which rendered me vulnerable; 
I was not dismayed by the inferences in his letter No. 10, from his dis- 
patch No. 6. I confess, however, that I was almost intirely at a loss, to 
what they could allude ; until, on the inspection of No. 6, I gathered 
from its short, abrupt, and incomplete statement, some leading ideas. 

Mr. Fauchet connects, what he calls the overture in No. 6, with the 
narrative of the insurrection ; and consequently a solution of it is to be 
looked for in that event. As to the request of a private conversation, I 
neither can, nor have I any solicitude, to charge my memory concerning 
it. Whensoever the Secretary of State has gone to the house of a for- 
eign minister, it has generally been a thing of course, that they shou d 
bo alone. Our discourse turned upon the insurrection, and upon the 
expected machinations of Mr. Hammond and others at New- York, 

* See Appendix. 



65 

against the French Republic, Governor Clinton, and myself. I spoke 
to you of this assemblage at New-York, and of Mr. Fauchet's opini'^n, 
that they would concert something to the annoyance of France. Fresh 
as the intelligence was upon my mind, that the British were fomenting 
the insurrection, I was strongly inclined to believe, that Mr. Hammond's 
congress, as Mr. Fauchct denominated it, would not forego the opportu- 
nity of furnishing, to the utmost of their abilities, employment to the 
United States, and of detaching their attention and power from the FiU- 
ropean war. Of Mr. Hammond's individual eiforts I could not enter- 
tain a doubt ; he having declared, if I am not misinformed, that Mr. 
Jay's mission would be abortive ; and his whole demeanor seeming 
to be regulated by the expectation, that no adjustment with Great Brit- 
ain was at hand. I own therefore, that I was extremely desirous of 
learning, what was passing at New-York. Mr. Fauchet had given me a 
title to call vipon him for proof of his complaints, that in the ' osom of 
our country, in one of our most capital cities, combinations against the 
French cause were tolerated. Complaints of this kind had been a reit- 
erated theme with him, and I could not neglect this, without subjecting 
myself to censure. I accordingly demanded his proofs ; calculating, 
that if evidence was unattainable, I should silence future crimination of 
the United States ; and if it was attainable, it might bring with it other 
intelligence, highly beneficial to the United States, in detecting and en- 
abling them to counteract, the machinations in favor of the insurrection. 
I certainly thought, that those men, who were on an intimate footing 
with Mr. Fauchet, and had some access to the British connections, were 
the best fitted for obtaining this intelligence. I remembered, that he 
had applied to me for the names of men, qualified as contractors of flour 
in the different states ; and this application can be proved by a paper in 
my possession, by two gentlemen in Philadelphia, and, I believe, by 
yourself, to whom I mentioned it. Whether I suggested them to be the 
proper correspondents on the occasion, or not, I shall not undertake to 
determine. But if I did, I had not the most distant idea of any names, 
or any number of persons ; and if number was at all hinted at, it must 
have been in that indefinite way, which Mr. Fauchet states in his certifi- 
cate. — What were to be the functions of these men ? iThe dispatch No. 
6, informs us, "to save the countri/" from a civil war ; not to kindle 
one, as has been maliciously asserted. To every man, whose motives 
were pure ; who panted for no pretexts to raise a military force ; this 
object was dear indeed : The backwardness of some portions of the mi- 
litia in marching, and the resignation of several oflScers, were notorious ; 
and when I broke to 3Ir. Bradford and other gentlemen, my fear of our 
being embroiled with the British, I aver their answer to have been, that, 
if the British could once be found to have meddled with the insurrec- 
5 



66 

tion, the friends of the insurgents wovild abandon them, and the militia 
would stop forth Tvith alacrity. Of this I was absolutely persuaded my- 
self. -4-It was easy to be foreseen, that every rigor, which could be exer- 
cised upon men, who should be known to be engaged in a work of this na- 
ture, would be exercised upon them by the British Faction ; and that if 
from debt or any other cause they should happen to be in their power, 
mercy would be vainly expected. How I expressed myself in relation to 
this, if at all, I cannot now remember ; for it was so much an affair of 
accidental occurrence to my mind, that until I saw No. 6, I could not, 
in the smallest degree, satisfy myself, how money came to be involved. 
Mr. Fauchet's letter indeed made me suppose, that No. 6 possibly allu- 
ded to some actual or proffered loan or expenditure, for the nourishment 
of the insurrection : and therefore I thought it necessary to deny, in my 
letter to you of the 19th of August, 1795, that one shilling was contem- 
plated by me to be applied by Mr. Fauchet relative to the insxirrection. 
I could only say, as I now repeat, that whatsoever might have passed, in 
which money was embraced, could only respect the circumstances above 
mentioned. I appeal to God, as my witness, that the day after the con- 
versation with Mr. Fauchet, I informed you of his having complained of 
machinations at New-York against his government : that he intimated 
others of a similar kind against the United States : that you asked me 
why he did not bring proof of them ? and that I replied, that I had in- 
sisted upon it being his duty to produce them by every exertion in his 
power. How much more I may have said to you, I do not recollect; 
but I withheld nothing from you, on an idea of impropriety in myself. 
To minute down the various conversations between you and myself, was 
impracticable : to recollect them all, and in their just extent, cannot be 
undertaken by either of us ; — nay more, had I been so careful, as to pre- 
serve a memorial of this particular conversation, which, in the supposed 
money part of it at least, made so small an impression upon me, I 
should be puzzled to assign a reason to myself for doing so. 

What, if I had exhorted Mr. Fauchet thus : " Sir ! you have been 
uttering your discontents to me concerning a conspiracy, carried on by 
the British in the United States against your government, and have 
insinuated, that it is extended even to our own. To prove that you are 
sincere, and are not indulging idle clamors ; obtain the necessary intelli- 
gence. You can do it, although you should be obliged to protect your 
correspondents from British persecution, by the advances to be made to 
them, on the score of your flour-contracts." Without examining the 
correctness or unfitness of this procedure ; let me ask, if I was not war- 
ranted in the belief, that it would. have been acceptable to you, to make 
the researches, which Mr. Fauchet was bound to institute in justice to 
his own country, the vehicle of information, useful to our own, touching 



6T 

the Britisli movements ? Yes, Sir ; look at a certain letter, whicli you 
approved, on the 28th of July, 1794, in which the money of the United 
States was pledged, and every nerve was strained for this object ; — look 
at another letter, which, though written on the 28th of August, 1794, 
was discussed as early as the latter end of July ; and directed a public 
officer to explore the temper of the counties, west of the Susquehanna, 
as to the insurrection : — remember another very confidential letter, which 
I was instructed by you to write, urging a particular person to explore 
the situation of the insurgents in all points, j What my own zeal was 
on this distressing crisis, let my private letter to Mr. Bradford at Pitts- 
burg, on the IGth of August, 1794, speak. — " The attention of this 
city* is occupied by the commotion in the west; and there seems to be 
but one horror at the attack on government. Plowever, I pray you to 
close the business without bloodshed; and let the souls of our fellow- 
citizens be warmed against some common enemy, rather than one 
another. Whatever eloquence, whatever influence our commissioners 
possess, let them pour it all most profusely forth, rather than suffer the 
sword to be drawn. I never reflect on the situation of the man, whom 
I venerate and love, that I do not curse those, who are endeavoring 
by their outrages on government, to drive him to an act, which he would 
avoid by any sacrifice of personal considerations. If the Rubicon is not 
passed by the insurgents, I trust, that you can stop them on this side ; — 
if it is, I lament the dire necessity of appealing to arms." 1 

That the narrative of the conversation is mutilated, appears from the 
very face of the paper, which Mr. Adet affirms to contain the whole of 
what relates to the overture, as it is called. Naked as the representa- 
tion is, it is incomprehensible in itself. What four men upon earth 
could have been contemplated ? Why was British persecution to be ap- 
prehended ? Why should so peculiar an interest be attributed to Mr. 
Fauchet, in saving the country from a civil war ? No other explanation, 
than that which has been given, will suit the imperfect hints. Having 
already delivered my opinion to the President for the purpose of saving 
a civil war, no agency from me could accomplish any new effect. 

I will here inquire from Mr. Hammond, and the British faction, 
which through him have been put in motion ; from those, who for the 
sake of party, interest, or personality, have propagated falsehoods in 
every town ; or who persevere in the hatred of a connection between 
the United States and France ; — what is become of their base assertions, 
that tens and hundreds of thousand dollars have been received from the 
French minister ? I demand of those, who have transmitted to every 
quarter of the Union, in which they could find adherents, stories of 

* Philadelphia. 



68 

large sums of French secret-service money being distributed in the 
United States, to exhibit their proof. Let them or the government go 
to the Bank of the United States, from whence the French minister 
received all the money which was paid to him by our treasury, or let 
them scrutinize elsewhere. Let every sum of importance be traced : 
let a reward be offered for every species of evidence : I challenge the 
whole world to support, by these or any other expedients, the charge of 
money or of an overture for money. 

If candor ever dwelt in the breast of those, who have seized Mr. 
Fauchet's letter, as an instrument of party, or from their fiimiliarity 
with corruption it has not deserted them, I must entreat them for 
a moment to obey the dictates of common sense. Nothing short of the 
most complete folly could have induced me to hint to Mr. Fauchet 
an overture of money for myself — 1. It cannot be doubted, that if Mr. 
Fauchet had even conjectured, that I had presented myself for money, 
he would have been pointed. He would either have directly asserted it, 
or would have insinuated, that the measure, of which I talked, was a 
cover to some proposition for my own benefit. He would have animad- 
verted upon the circuitousness of my proceeding; and would probably 
have attempted to indicate, how my observations could have been 
brought round, so as to be applicable to myself. An omission like this, 
was too striking to a man, whose pen was rapidly flowing in the history 
of his access to official secrets. — 2. There were official secrets, which 
might have been distantly, but plainly approached, and the value of 
which would have been more attractive to him, than the ^^ saving of the 
United States from a civil warJ' What would not have been his joy 
to inspect Mr. Jay's instructions and letters ? And yet you must be 
convinced, that he never saw or heard a syllable of them, without your 
permission. — 3. A plan of corruption, which should engage the atten- 
tion of a foreign minister, must pledge the person corrupted to execute 
the will of the foreign government. Eead Mr. Fauchet's letters in the 
department of state ; read the anguish of his remonstrances ; and then 
/ determine, if the most successful address to him for a mercenary purpose 
would not have been, to promise to labor for the removal of their 
cause.^ — 4. I have often heard him vehement against the British prac- 
tice of seduction, and extolling the purity of his own government. If 
this were not enough to deter a proposition for money; it would have 
been clothed in terms, which might decisively fix his notice. — 5. You 
and I knew, Sir, officially, his poverty ; from his urgency to anticipate 
the debt, due to France, for the purchase of provisions. — 6. You and 
I knew officially from the American minister, that two other persons 
were in commission with Mr. Fauchet. It was suspected, from a quarter 
in which I confided, that these persons were in a political intimacy 



i 



69 

with members of our government, not friendly to me. I knew offi- 
cially, that money-claiuis and money advances were to be sanctioned 
by them as well as Mr. Fauchet. Is it possible, that ordinary prudence 
would not have forbidden this hazard, this certainty of detection ? — 7. It 
was predicted on Mr. Favichet's arrival, that on a revolution of the 
party, which sent him hither, he would be recalled. Was this the 
foreign minister, who was to be the depository of very high confi- 
dence ? — 8. You recollect, that Mr. Fauchet, upon learning that you' 
meant to reside at Germantown during the summer of 1794, rented 
a house, as he told you, to have the pleasure of being near you : that 
without lodging a single night there, he suddenly reversed his deter- 
mination ; paid his landlord a composition, and sequestered himself in 
the country on the Schuylkill. No sooner was I acquainted with it 
than I observed to you, that Mr. Fauchet must have been abruptly 
alienated from the government. This therefore was not the season for 
confidential overtures ; and the strain of my public letters to him, which 
awakened his sensibility, manifested, that I felt myself beyond danger 
from his disclosures. — 9. Would he have thought of answering me, by 
referring to "the pure and unalterable principles of his Republic;" 
would he have always admitted my integrity in his letters ; or would he 
have certified the conversation, as he has done, if I had condescended to 
accept a bribe? — 10. Do you believe. Sir, that if money was pursued 
by a Secretary of State, he would have been rebuffed by an answer, 
which implied no refusal ; and would not have renewed the proposition ; 
which however Mr. Fauchet confesses, that he never heard of again. 

But why, (it may be asked,) if his impressions were not very fprcible, 
has he made such forcible inferences ? — When he wrote his letter on the 
31st of October 1794, his irritation against the government had in- 
creased ; and his political speculations went to villify the system of 
finance, and to bend every event to his opinions. How else can we 
account for a civil war, which was then existing, being decided or not, 
according to the statement in No. 6 ? — Where is the tariff, as if a sum 
was marked out ? — His impressions may have been what they will : I 
deny them, if they be coupled with any thing dishonorable. He admits, 
that he was mistaken. No. 6 itself demonstrates, that he did not com- 
prehend the transaction ; and his solution of his error from the use of 
the French and English language at different times, will be frankly 
allowed by those, who have been circumstanced, as Mr. Fauchet was. 

If a foreign minister, known to be disgusted with the government, 
and a particular ofiicer ; anxious to approve himself as vigilant, pene- 
trating, and influential ; imperfectly understanding what is said to him j 
conjecturing things to be facts, many of which are, within the knowledge 
of yourself and others, unfounded; collecting from the newspapers 



TO 

states of politics ; secluding himself from the world, where his inforftia- 
tion might be chastised : drawing erroneous consequences from his own 
data : — if he is to be immediately and continually quoted in opposition 
to his own certificate, and the tenor of his own dispatches, to the disad- 
vantage of that officer; — then may any foreign minister destroy, whom 
he pleases : then may Mr. Hammond, and those who resemble him, 
destroy any officer, not devoted to Great Britain. What more can be 
expected from me ? 

The seventeenth paragraph. 

17. As soon as it was decided that the French Republic purchased no men to 
do their duty, there were to be seen individuals, about whose conduct the govern- 
ment could at least form uneasy conjectures, giving themselves up with a scan- 
dalous ostentation to its views, and even seconding its declarations. The Popular 
focieties soon emitted resolutions stamped with the same spirit, and who, although 
they may have been advised by love of order, might nevertheless have omitted 
or uttered them with less solemnity. Then were seen coming from the very men' 
whom we had been accustomed to regard as having little friendship for the system 
of the treasurer, harangues without end, in order to give a new direction to the 
public mind. The militia, however, manifest some repugnance, particularly in 
Pennsylvania, for the service to which they were called. Several officers resign ; at 
last by excursions or harangues, incomplete requisitions are obtained, and scat- 
tered volunteer corps from diiferent parts make up the deficiency. How much 
more interesting, than the changeable men whom I have painted above, were 
those plain citizens who answered the solicitations which were made to them to 
join the volunteers — "If we are required we will march; because we do not wish 
not to have a government, but to arm ourselves as volunteers would be in ap- 
pearance subscribing implicitly to the excise system which we reprobate." 

Although in the first line of this paragraph, M. Fauchet continues 
the spirit of the deductions, which he had made the minute before; yet 
does it manifest, that, when he wrote his letter, he did not conceive me 
to be personally concerned in the overture, as he terms it. For what 
were men to be procured ? To do their duty. What was their duty ? 
To save their country from a civil war. If it be objected, that his deci- 
sion, which appears from No. 6, never to have been communicated to 
me, was notwithstanding guessed at and intimated to any individuals 
whatsoever; I assert, that nothing can be more remote from truth. 

The eighteenth paragraph. 

18. What I have said above, .authorizes then our resting on the opinion become 
incontestible, that in the crisis which has burst, and in the means employed for 
restoring order, the true question was the destruction or the triumph of the 
treasurer's plans. This being once established, let us pass over the facts related 
in the common dispatches, and see how the government or the treasurer will take 
from the very stroke which threatened his system the safe opportunity of humb- 
ling the adverse party, and of silencing their enemies whether open or concealed. 



71 

The army marched; the President made known that he was going to command 
it; he .sat out for Carlisle; Hamilton, as 1 have understood, requested to follow 
him; the President dared not to refuse him. It does not require much penetra- 
tion to divine the object of this journey: In the President it was wise, it might 
also be his duty. But in Mr. Hamilton it was the consequence of the profound 
policy which directs all his steps; a measure dictated by a perfect knowledge of 
the human heart. Was it not interesting for him, for his party, tottering under 
the weight of events without and accusations within, to proclaim an intimacy 
more perfect than ever with the President, whose very name is a sufficient shield 
against the most formidable attacks? Now what more evident mark could the 
President give of his intimacy than by suffering Mr. Hamilton, whose name even 
is understood in the west as that of a public enemy, to go and place himself at 
the head of the army which went, if I may use the expression, to cause his sys- 
tem to triumph against the opposition of the people? The presence of Mr. 
Hamilton with the army must attacli it more than ever to his party; we see what 
ideas these circumstances give birth to on both sides, all however to the advan- 
tage of the secretary. 

This paragraph scarcely requires a comment from me. It is observ- 
able, however, that, as Mr. Fauchet returns to subjects, upon which he 
communicated with his colleagues, they were, according to his observa- 
tion at the beginning of his letter, entirely distinct from any secrets 
of our government. When he speaks of his having learned, that Mr. 
Hamilton requested to follow the President, I am not quoted ; though I 
shall freely declare, how I may have contributed to the report, which he 
might have possibly heard from his colleagues through the connections, 
which they had formed, both in and out of the government. You will 
remember, Sir, that I represented to you, how much. Col. Hamilton's 
accompanying you was talked of out of doors, and how much stress was 
laid upon the seeming necessity of the commander in chief having him 
always at his elbow. You acquainted me with his request to attend 
you, and I understood, that I was at liberty to say so, wheresoever I 
should find an occasion. I think it probable therefore, that I mentioned 
the fact, to shew to the world, that Col. Hamilton had not been solicited 
by you to follov,* him, and thus to counteract the .idea of your absolute 
dependence on his counsels. But I neither recollect nor believe, that 
any thing passed from myself to Mr. Fauchet. That the President 
dared not to refuse Mr. Hamilton is plainly Mr. Fauchet's own remark. 

The nineteenth paragraph. 

19. Three weeks had they encamped in the west without a single armed man 
appearing. However the I'resident, or those who wished to make the most of 
this new manoeuvre, made it public that he was going to command in person. 
The session of Congress being very near, it was wished to ti-y whether there 
could not be obtained from the presses, which were supposed to have changed, a 
silence^ whence to conclude the possibility of infringing the Constitution in its 
most essential part: in that which fixes the relation of the President with the 



72 

legislature. But the patriotic jmpers laid bold of this artful attempt: I am cer- 
tain that the office of Secretary of State, which alone remained at Philadelphia, 
(for while the minister of finance was with the army, the minister of war was 
on a tour to the Province of Maine, 400 miles from Philadelphia,) maintained 
the conti'oversy in favor of the opinion -which it was desired to establish. A 
comparison between the President and the English monarch was introduced, who 
far removed from AVestminstei-, yet strictly fulfills his duty of sanctioning; it was 
much insisted on, that the Constitution declares that the President commands the 
armed force: this similitude was treated with contempt; the consequence of the 
power of commanding in person, drawn from the light to command in chief (or 
direct) the force of the State, Avas ridiculed and reduced to an absurdity, by 
supposing a fleet at sea and an army on land. The result of this controversy 
w as, that some days after it was announced that the President would come to 
open the approaching session. 

I discover nothing in this paragraph demanding an answer from me ; 
except that with my privity or belief, not a single jDublication was made 
from the Department of State, respecting the President's absence from 
Congress. 

The twentieth, twenty-first, ticenty-second, twenty-third, ticenty-fourth, and twenty- 
fifth paragraphs. 

20. During his stay at Bedford, the President doubtless concerted the plan of 
the campaign with Mr. Lee, to whom he left the command in chief. The letter 
by which he delegates the command to him, is that of a virtuous man, at least 
as to the major part of the sentiments which it contains; he afterwards set out 
for Philadelphia, where he has just arrived, and Mr. Hamilton remains with the 
army. 

21. This last circumstance unveils all the plan of the Secretary; he presides 
over the military operations in order to acquire in the sight of his enemies a 
formidable and imposing consideration. He and Mr. Lee the commander in chief 
agree perfectly in principles. The governors of Jersey and Maryland harmonize 
entirely with them; the governor of Pennsylvania^ of whom it never would have 
been suspected, lived intimately and publicly with Hamilton. Such a union of 
persons would be matter sufficient to produce resistance in the western counties, 
even admitting they had not thought of making any. 

22. The soldiers themselves are astonished at the scandalous gaiety with which 
those who possess the secret, proclaim their approaching triumph. It is asked, 
of what use are 15,000 men in i.his country, in which provisions are scarce, and 
where are to be seized only some turbulent men at their plough. Those who 
conducted the expedition know this ; the matter is to create a great expense; 
when the sums shall come to be assessed, no one will be willing to pay, and 
should each pay his assessment, it will be done in cursing the insurgent princi- 
ples of the patriots. 

23. It is impossible to make a more able manoeuvre for the opening of Congress. 
The passions, the generous indignation, which had agitated their minds in the 
last session, were about being renewed with still more vigor; there was nothing 
to announce of brilliant successes which they had promised. The hostilities of 
Great Britain on the continent so long disguised, and now become evident, a 



n 

commerce always harassed, ridiculous negotiations lingering at London, waiting 
until new conjunctures should authorize new insults ; such was the picture they 
■were likely to have to offer the representatives of the people. But this crisis, 
and the great movements made to prevent its consequences, change the state of 
things. With what advantage do they denounce an atrocious attack upon the 
Constitution, and appreciate the activity used to repress it; the aristocratical 
party will soon have understood the secret; all the misfortunes will be attributed 
to patriots; the party of the latter is about being deserted by all the weak 
men, and this complete session will have been gained. 

24. Who knows what will be the limits of this triumph? Perhaps advantage 
will be taken by it to obtain some laws for strengthening the government, and 
still more precipitating the propensity, already visible, that it has towards 
aristocracy. 

25. Such are, Citizen, the data which I possess concerning these events, and 
the consequences I draw from them ; I wish I may be deceived in my calcula- 
tions; and the good disposition of the people, their attachment to principles 
leads me to expect it. I have perhaps herein fallen into the repetition of reflec- 
tions and facts contained in other dispatches, but I wished to present together " 
some views which I have reason to ascribe to the ruling party, and some able 
manoeuvres invented to support themselves. Without participating in the passions 
of the parties, I observe them; and I OAve to my country an exact and strict ac- 
count of the situation of things. I shall make it my duty to keep you regularly 
informed of every change that may take place ; above all I shall apply myself to 
penetrate the disposition of the legislature ; that will not a little assist in forming 
the final idea which we ought to have of these movements, and what we should 
really fear or hope from them. 

.y. Upon these paragraphs I shall observe, only, that it was impossible 
for me, on the faith of Mr. Jay's letters, to pronounce, that the negoti- 
ation in London were derisory or ridiculous. 

"^ , Thus, Sir, have I analyzed Mr. Fauchet's letter No. 10, and his dis- 
patches No. 3 and 6. But it is my right, from a just sense of injury, to 
call the attention of the people and yourself to some further observations. 



In this letter. Sir, I appeal to the people of the United States. They 
have not committed themselves. They have no prejudices, no antipa- 
thies, no jealousies to be awakened. They will follow counsellors, who 
will not, and cannot deceive them : who will act for themselves, and are 
not played off by others behind the scene. They will be able to repel 
the crisis, which, I fear, may disturb our harmony with France. But 
without a farther enumeration of reasons for an appeal to the people, to 
whom else ought I to appeal? If the stories, which have been propa- 
gated, be true; it is their honor, which has been wounded. If false, 



74 

they alone can make retribution to me. On them alone can I rely to 
distinguish truth from the management and exaggerations of a British 
minister, British partizans, British merchants, enemies of France, friends 
of monarchy, and violators of our Constitution. 

To yourself. Sir, I never can appeal. Your conduct on the 19th of 
August, 1795, your letter of the 20th; and the declarations of those, 
who felt a persuasion, that they were fighting under your banners, have 
long ago proclaimed, that you had been in an instant transformed into 
my enemy : And this, if I mistake not, was the course of your thoughts. 
After you had determined not to ratify during the existence of the pro- 
vision-order, you were surrounded by the remonstrances of the people 
from one end of the Union to the other. You perceived, that not to 
ratify immediately, would disgust one party, and that to ratify, even 
after the abolition of that order, would disgust the other. You will 
remember a remarkable phrase of your own upon this occasion. Before, 
however, you were scarcely cool from the heat of your journey from 
Virginia, the man, who had been anxiously inquiring after your arrival, 
hastened to deliver the letter to you. Then the friendship of the people 
for France, which had been before a terror, was changed into a phantom, 
from the expectation of satisfying them of an existing corruption in her 
favor. Then the opposers of the treaty might, as was supposed, be 
branded, as a "detestable faction,'" — "a detestable conspiracy," — and 
plotters of a revolution. The destruction of me was a little something; 
the groundwork of a more important assault upon others. In me you 
saw a man of no party; — whose friends, though they knew me to be re- 
publican, were misled to believe, that in your Cabinet I was an adherent 
to anti-republican measures, and were ignorant, that no opinion, which 
I there gave, ever swerved from the rights of the people : — who, having 
the name of being befriended by you, and having always vindicated 
your character, when unjustly assailed, was the more exposed to a deadly 
stroke from the arm of an elevated and reputed patron. You thought 
also, that from the agency, which I had had in the treaty, the people 
might keep aloof from rendering me justice. Be this as it may, they 
shall be informed of the truth; and I repeat, that I will not court the 
prejudices of any man upon earth. 

I did indeed, before the provision-order was known, consider you as 
bound to ratify, if the Senate should advise you ; because your powers 
to Mr. Jay did not seem to have been exceeded. I was much influenced 
also by these considerations. — 1. That if the people were adverse to the 
treaty, it was the constitutional right of the House of Representatives 
to refuse, upon original grounds, unfettered by the assent of the Sen- 
ate or yourself, to pass the laws necessary for its execution : — 2. That 
Mr. Jay had asserted that no better terms could possibly be obtained; 



T5 

and that obstinacy in rejecting the settlement, which he had made, might 
be serious : — 3. That I did not then suppose, that we were to hazard a 
war with France, by concurring in the attempt to starve her. But as 
soon as the provision-order was promulged, I delivered to you my opin- 
ion on the 12th of July, 1795; in which I stated my objections to the 
treaty, including many of your own, transmitted to Mr. Jay in my let' 
ters of 12th of November and 15th of December, 1794; placing the 
ratification on the same footing, on which I had placed it in my address 
to Mr. Hammond. 

Without a subserviency to French politics, I might have well doubted 
of the expediency of ratifying, when it appears by a letter from Mr. Jay, 
of the 5th of November, 1794, (fourteen days before he signed it,) that 
he himself vibrated on the propriety of signing it. The maxim, which 
I have always enforced to you, has been, that the United States should 
shake off all dependence of French and English interference in our 
affairs ; but that we ought not to deny or baffle the gratitude of the peo- 
ple to France under the pretext of independence, in order to give a deci- 
sive preponderance to Great Britain. 

Anxious as I am to close this letter which has been delayed, not from 
any design, or hesitation, but from circumstances, unavoidable in my 
situation; I have only to deplore, that even with an anxiety on your 
part to recollect every thing, I cannot hope for support in many things, 
which I might mention, .and which have been confined to ourselves; 
after having heard you daily complain, that you could not trust your 
memory. But having been driven by self-defence to speak freely, I 
stand upon the truth of what I have spoken : — let the people judge. 

I have the honor, Sir, to be with due respect, 
Your most obedient servant, 

EDM. KANDOLPH. 



APPENDIX. 



No. I. 

MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, TO 

CONGRESS. 

"United States, December 5, 1793. 
Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, 

" As the present situation of the several nations of Europe, and especially of 
those with Tfliich the United States have important relations, cannot but render 
the state of things between them and ixs, matter of interesting enquiry, to the 
legislature, and may, indeed, give rise to deliberations, to which they alone are 
competent, I have thought it my duty to communicate to them, certain corres- 
pondences which have taken place. 

The representative and executive bodies of France have manifested, generally, 
a friendly attachment to this country ; have given advantages to our commerce 
and navigation, and have made overtures for placing these advantages on perma- 
nent ground ; a decree, however, of the National Assembly, subjecting vessels 
laden with provisions, to be carried into their ports, and making enemy-gcods 
lawful prize, in the vessel of a friend, contrary to our treaty, though revoked at 
one time, as to the United States, has been since extended to their vessels also, 
as has been recently stated to us : — Representations on this subject will be im- 
mediately given in charge to our minister there, and the result shall be commu- 
nicated to the legislature. 

It is, with extreme concern, I have to inform you, that the proceedings of the 
person, whom they have unfortunately appointed their minister plenipotentiary 
here, have breathed nothing of the friendly spirit of the nation which sent him ; 
their tendency, on the contrary, has been to involve us in war abroad, and dis- 
cord and anarchy at home. So far as his acts, or those of his agents have 
thi-eatened our immediate commitment in the war, or flagrant insult to the 
authority of the laws, their effect has been counteracted by the ordinary cogni- 
zance of the laws, and by an exertion of the powers confided to me. Where 
their danger was not imminent, they have been borne with, from sentiments 
of regard to his nation ; from a sense of their friendship towards us ; from a 
conviction, that they would not suffer us to remain long exposed to the action of 
a person, who has so little respected our mutual dispositions ; and, I will add, 
from a reliance on the firmness of my fellow-citizens, in their principles of peace 
and order. In the mean time I have respected and pursued the stipulations of 
our treaties, according to what I judged their true sense ; and have withheld no 
act of friendship, which their affairs have called for from us, and which justice 
to others left us free to perform — I have gone further. — Rather than employ 



78 

force for the restitution of certain vessels, which I deemed the United States 
bound to restore, I thought it more advisable to satisfy the parties, by avowing 
it to be my opinion, that if restitution vrere not made, it would be incumbent on 
the United States to make compensation. The papers now communicated will 
more particularly apprise you of these transactions. 

The vexations and spoliation, understood to have been committed on our 
vessels and commerce, by the cruisers and officers of some of the belligerent 
powers, appeared to require attention. The proofs of these, however, not having 
been brought foi-ward, the description of citizens supposed to have suffered, 
were notified, that, on furnishing them to the executive, due measures would be 
taken to obtain redress of the past, and more effectual provisions against the 
future. Should such documents be furnished, proper representations will be 
made thereon, with a just reliance on a redress proportioned to the exigency of 
the case. 

The r>ritish government having undertaken, by orders to the commanders 
of their armed vessels, to restrain, generally, our commerce, in corn and other 
provisions, to their own ports, and those of their friends, the instructions now 
communicated were immediately forwarded to oui" minister at that court. In 
the mean time, some discussions on the subject took place between him and 
them ; these are also laid before you ; and I may expect to learn the result of 
his special instructions, in time to make it known to the legislature, during their 
present session. 

Very early after the arrival of a British minister here, mutual explanations on 
the inexecution of the treaty of peace were entered into, with that minister : 
these are now laid before you, for your information. 

On the subjects of mutual interest between this country and Spain, negotia- 
tions and conferences are now depending. The public good requiring that the 
present state of these should be made known to the legislature, in confidence only, 
thev shall be the subject of a separate and subsequent communication. 

Go! WASHINGTON. 

No. II. 

Message of the President to the Senate, nominating Mr. Jay. 

April 16th, 1794. 
Gentlemen of the Senate, — The communications which I have made to you 
during your present session, from the dispatches of our minister in London, con- 
tain a serious aspect of our affairs with Great Britain. But as Peace ought to 
be pursued with unremitted zeal, before the last resource, which has so often 
been the scourge of nations, and cannot fail to check the advanced prosperity of 
the United States, is contemplated, I have thought proper to nominate and do 
hereby nominate John Jay, as Envoy Extraordinary of the United States, to 
his Britannic Majesty. My confidence in our Minister Plenipotentiary in Lon- 
don, continues undiminished ; but a mission like this, while it corresponds with 
the solemnity of the occasion, will announce to the world a solicitude for a 
friendly adjustment of our complai7its, and a reluctance to hostility. Going imme- 
diately from the United States, such an Envoy will carry with him a full knowl- 
edge of the existing temper and sensibility of our country ; and will thus be 
taught to vindicate our rights with firmness, and to cultivate peace with sincerity. 



79 



No. III. 

Edmund Randolph to the President. 

Philadelphia, 5th August, 1794, 

Sir, The late events in the neighborhood of Pittsburg appeared, on the first 
intelligence of them, to be extensive in their relations. But subsequent reflec- 
tion, and the conference with the Governor of Pennsylvania, have multiplied 
them in my mind tenfold. Indeed, Sir, the moment is big with a crisis, which 
would convulse the eldest government; and if it should burst on ours, its extent 
and dominion can be but faintly conjectured. 

At our fii'st consultation, in your presence, the indignation, which we all felt, 
at the outrages committed, created a desire, that the information received should 
be laid before an associate justice, or the district judge ; to be considered under 
the act of May 2d, 1792. This step was urged by the necessity of understand- 
ing, without delay, all the means vested in the President, for suppressing the 
progress of the mischief. A caution, however, was prescribed to the Attorney 
General, who submitted the documents to the Judge, not to express the most 
distant wish of the President that the certificate should be granted. 

The certificate has been granted ; and although the testimony is not in my 
judgment yet in suificient legal form, to become the ground-work of such an act; 
and a judge ought not a priori to decide that the Marshal is incompetent to 
suppress the combinations by the posse comitatus, yet the certificate, if it be 
minute enough, is conclusive, that, " in the counties of Washington and Alle- 
ghany in Pennsylvania, laws of the United States are opposed, and the execution 
thereof obstructed by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordi- 
nary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the Marshal 
of that district." But the certificate specifies no particular law which has been 
opposed. This defect I remarked to Judge Wilson, from whom the certificate 
came, and obsei'ved that the design of the law being, that a judge should point 
out to the executive where the judiciary stood in need of military aid, it was 
frustrated if military force should.be applied to laws, which the judge might not 
contemplate. He did not yield to my reasoning ; and therefore I presume that 
the objection will not be received against the validity of the certificate. 

Upon the supposition of its being valid a power arises to the President to call 
forth the militia of Pennsylvania, and eventually the militia of other States, 
which may be convenient. But as the law does not compel the President to 
array the militia in consequence of the certificate, and renders it lawful only for 
him so to do ; the grand enquiry is, whether it be expedient to exercise this 
power at this time. 

On many occasions have I contended ; that whensoever military coercion is to 
be resorted to in support of law, the militia are the true, proper, and only in- 
struments which ought to be employed. But a calm survey of the situation 
of the United States has presented these dangers, and these objections, and ban- 
ishes every idea of calling them into immediate action : 

1. A radical and universal dissatisfaction with the excise pervades the four 
transmontane counties of Pennsylvania, having more than sixty-three thousand 
souls in the whole, and more than fifteen thousand white males above the age of 
sixteen. The counties on the eastern side of the mountain, and some other 



80 

populous counties, are infected by similar prejudices, inferior in degree, and 
dormant, but not extinguished. 

2. Several counties in Virginia, having a strong militia, participate in these 
feelings. 

3. The insurgents themselves, numerous, are more closely united by like 
dangers, with friends and kindred, scattered abroad in diifereut places, who will 
enter into all the apprehensions, and combine in all the precautions of safety, 
adopted by them. 

4. As soon, too, as any event of eclat shall occur, around which persons, dis- 
contented on other principles, whether of aversion to the government or disgust 
with any measures of the administration, may rally, they will make a common 
cause. 

5. The Governor of Pennsylvania has declared his opinion to be, that the 
militia, which can be drawn forth, will be unequal to the task. 

6. If the militia of other States are to be called forth, it is not a decided 
thing, that many of them may not refuse. And if they comply, is nothing to be 
apprehended from a strong cement growing between all the militia of Pennsyl- 
vania, when they perceive, that, another militia is to be introduced into the 
bosom of their country ? The experiment is at least untried. 

7. The expense of a military expedition will be very great ; and with a de- 
vouring Indiiin war, the commencement of a navy, the sum to be expended for 
obtaining a peace with Algiers, the destruction of our mercantile capital by 
British depredations, the xmcertainty of war or peace with Great Britain, the 
impatience of the people under increased taxes, the punctual support of our 
credit ; — it behooves those who manage our fiscal matters, to be sure of their 
pecuniary resources, when so great a field of new and unexpected expense is to 
be opened. 

8. Is there any appropriation of money, which can be immediately devoted to 
this use ? If not how can money be drawn ? It is said that appropriations are 
to the War department generally ; but it may deserve enquiry, whether they 
were not made vipon particular statements of a kind of service, essentially dis- 
tinct from the one proposed. 

9. If the intelligence of the overtures of the British to the Western counties 
be true, and the inhabitants should be driven to accept their aid, the supplies of 
the western army — the western army itself may be destroyed ; the re-union of 
that country to the United States will be impracticable; and we must be engaged 

in a British war. If the intelligence be probable only , how difiBcult will 

it be to reconcile the world to believe, that we have been consistent in our con- 
duct ; when, after rimning the hazard of mortally ofi'ending the French by the 
punctilious observance of neutrality ; after deprecating the wrath of the English 
by every possible act of government; after the request for the suspension of the 
settlement at Presque Isle, which has in some measvire been foimded on the pos- 
sibility of Great Britain being roused to arms by it ; we pursue measures, which 
threaten collision with Great Britain and which are mixed with the blood of our 
fellow-citizens. 

10. If miscai'riage should befall the United States in the beginning, what may 
not be the consequence ? And if this should not happen, is it possible to foresee 
what may be the effect of ten, twenty, or thirty thousand of our citizens being 
drawn into the field against as many more. There is another enemy in the heart 
of the Soiithern States, who would not sleep with such an opportunity of 
advantage. 



81 

11. It is a fact well known tbat the parties in the United States are highly 
inflamed against each other ; and that there is but one character which keeps 
both in awe. As soon as the sword shall be drawn* to restrain them. 

On this subject the souls of some good men bleed : They have often asked 
themselves why they are always so jealous of military power, whenever it has 
been proposed to be exercised under the form of a succor to the civil authority ? 
How has it happened that with a temper, not addicted to suspicion, nor un- 
friendly to those who propose military force, they do not court the shining repu- 
tation which is acquired by being always ready for strong measm-es. This is the 
reason ; that they ai-e confident that they know the ultimate sense of the people ; 
that the will of the people must force its way in the government ; that, notwith- 
standing the indignation which may be raised against the insurgents ; yet if 
measures, unnecessarily harsh, disproportiouably harsh, and without a previous 
trial of every thing, which law or the spirit of conciliation can do, be executed, 
that indignation will give way, and the people will be estranged from the admin- 
istration, which made the experiment. There is a second reason : one motive, 
assigned in argument, for calling forth the militia, has been, that a government 
can never be said to be established, until some signal display has manifested its 
power of military coercion. This maxim, if indulged, would heap curses upon 
the government. The strength of a government is the affection of the people ; 
and while that is maintained, every invader, every insurgent, will as certainly 
count upon the fear of its strength, as if it had with one army of citizens mown 
down another. 

Let the parties in the United States be ever kindled into action, sentiments like 
these will produce a flame, which will not terminate in a common revolution. 

Knowing, Sir, as I do, the motives, which govern you in office, I was certain 
that you would be anxious to mitigate as far as yovi thought it practicable, the 
military course which has been recommended. You have accordingly suspended 
the force of the preceding observations by determining not to call forth the 
militia immediately to action, and to send commissioners, who may explain and 
adjust if possible the present discontents. 

The next question then is, whether the militia shall be directed to hold them- 
selves in readiness ; or shall not be summoned at all ? 

It has been supposed by some gentlemen, that when reconciliation is ofl^ered 
with one hand, terror should be borne in the other ; and that a full amnesty and 
oblivion shall not be granted, unless the excise laws be complied with in the 
fullest manner. 

With a language such as this, the overtures of peace will be considered de- 
lusive by the insurgents and the most of the world. It will be said and believed, 
that the design of sending commissioners was only to gloss over hostility ; to 
endeavor to divide ; to sound the strength of the insurgents ; to discover the 
most culpable persons, to be marked out for punishment; to temporize until 
Congress can be prevailed upon to order further force, or the western army may 
be at leisui-e from the savages, to be turned upon the insurgents ; and many 
other suspicions will be entertained which cannot be here enumerated. When 
Congress talked of some high handed steps against Great Britain, they were dis- 
approved, as counteracting Mi*. Jay's mission ; because it could not be expected, 
she would be dragooned. Human nature will to a certain point shew itself to 



* There is a blank in this place in the copy preserved. 

6 






82 



be the same, even among the Alleghany mountains. The mission -will, I fear, 
fail ; though it would be to me the most grateful occurrence in life to find my 
prediction falsified. If it does fail, and in consequence of the disappointment 
the militia should be required to act, then -will return that fatal train of events, 
which I have stated above, to be suspended, for the present. 

What would be the inconvenience of delay ? The result of the mission would 
be known in four weeks, and the President would be master of his measures, 
without any previous commitment. Four weeks could not render the insurgents 
more formidable : that space of time might render them less so, by affording 
room for reflection : and the government will have a sufiicient season remaining 
to action. Until every peaceable attempt shall be exhausted, it is not clear to 
me, that as soon as the call is made, and the proclamation issued, the militia 
may not enter into some combination, which will satisfy the insurgents, that 
they need fear nothing from them, and spread those combinations among the 
militia. 

My opinion therefore is, that the commissioners will be furnished with enough 
on the score of terror, when they announce, that the President is in possession 
of the certificate of the judge. It will confirm the humanity of the mission; 
!ind notwithstanding some men might pay encomiums on decision, vigor of 
nerves, &c. &c. if the militia were summoned to be held in readiness ; the ma- 
jority would conceive the merit of the mission incomplete if this were to 
be done. 

It will not, however, be supposed, that I mean that these outrages are to pass 
without animadversion. No, Sir. That the authority of government is to be 
maintained is not less my position, than that of others. But I prefer the accom- 
plishment of this by every experiment of moderation in the first instance. The 
steps, therefore, which I would recommend, are, 

1. A serious proclamation, stating the mischief, declaring the power, possessed 
by the executive, and announcing, that it is withheld from motives of humanity 
and a wish for conciliation. 

2. Commissioners, properly instructed to the same objects. 

■ 3. If they fail in their mission, let the offenders be prosecuted according 
to law. 

4. If the judiciary authority is, after this, withstood, let the militia be 
called out. 

These appear to me to be the only means for producing imanimity in the 
people ; and without their unanimity government may be mortified and defeated. 

If the President shall determine to operate with the militia, it will be neces- 
sary to submit some animadversions upon the interpretation of the law. For it 
ought closely to be considered, whether if the combinations should disperse, the 
execution of process is not to be left to the Marshal and his posse. But these 
will be deferred, until orders shall be discussed for the militia to march. 

I have the honor. Sir, to be with the highest respect, and sincerest attachment. 

Your most obedient servant, 

EDM: RANDOLPH. 

The President of the United States. 



LBWv"30 



